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LIPPINCOTT 
EDUCATIONAL SERIES 

EDITED BY 

MARTIN G. BRUMBAUGH, A.M., Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF PEDAGOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND COMMISSIONER 
OF EDUCATION FOR PUERTO RICO 

VOLUME II 



LIPPnCOTT EDUCATIONAL SERIES 



TWO CENTURIES 



OF 



PE^NSYLVANIA HISTORY 



^\ 



V 



BY 



ISAAC SHARPLESS 

PRESIDENT OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE 




PHILADELPHIA 



J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
1900 



-^5 3 

Or/, 



KJ 



n 



Copyright, 1900 

BY 

J. B. LippiNCOTT Company 






ELECTROTYPEO AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELfHI A , U.S.A. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

¥¥ 

Pennsylvania justly merits the proud title, "The Key- 
tone State." Her history more than her geography gave 
her commanding relations to the sister colonies clustered 
along the western margin of the Atlantic. Her great 
founder and first English owner, William Penn, is the 
noblest character in America's colonial history. In Penn- 
sylvania every creed and every nationality was not only 
tolerated but welcomed. Her colonial life was more com- 
plex than that of any sister colony. To mould this life, so 
unlike in nationality, in religion, in civic ideals, and in 
industrial experience, into a unified people is one of the 
noblest records in the annals of any nation. To the credit 
of her people this was done without persecution and with- 
out coercion. 

Three great groups of people laid the foundations of 
the Commonwealth. The Quakers, under the great Penn, 
occupied the territory within a radius of thirty- five miles, 
giving themselves to commerce in Philadelphia and to agri- 
culture in the fertile valleys of Bucks, Chester, and adjacent 
counties. Beyond these' in a zone fifty miles wide, settled 
the sturdy and i^atient Germans, giving birth to German- 
American literature, establishing Protestant missions among 
the Indians, tilling with signal success the fair acres of 
Berks, Lancaster, Lebanon, Cumberland, and contiguous 
counties, founding the great textile industries of the 
Schuylkill Valley, and developing a home life unique for 
its strength and its simplicity. Beyond these, in the val- 
leys between the Blue and the Alleghany Mountains, lived 
the sturdy Scotch-Irish pioneers, pushing the frontier to the 
Ohio Valley, repelling Indian attacks, provoking strife by 
their restless haste to penetrate the wilderness, and estab- 
lishing churches and schools in every valley and upon every 
hill -top of the interior. 



VI 



PREFACE. 



Between these pioneers and the conservative Quaker gov- 
ernment there was constant strife, and the German held the 
balance of j)ower. The early Germans affiliated with the 
Quakers and controlled the government. The later Ger- 
mans gradually went over to the aggressive pioneers and 
aided them finally to gain control of the government. This 
triumph of the Scotch-Irish was due not only to German 
support, but also to the change of the proprietary from the 
faith of the founder. The Scotch-Irish and the newer 
German life dominated the colony during the Revolution, 
organized the State government, and gave direction to its 
subsequent history. 

To know this record in detail, to learn the personalities 
back of each move in the changing scene, and to find por- 
trayed the influences that developed each crisis are essen- 
tials to a knowledge of colonial conditions in Pennsylvania, 
and, because of her prominence, in America. 

The reader will find herein a definite discussion of the 
leading factors that contribute to the making of a great com- 
monwealth. He will also find a typical study of influences 
that condition the educational growth of any social or civic 
group. The work thus properly may be incorporated into 
an educational series. N'o intensive study of pedagogic 
maxims will afford the right mental attitude for true teach- 
ing. There must always be, in addition to professional 
study, a critical and extended study of related truth. Only 
in this wider field does the student of educational theory 
find the necessary insight to avoid the follies of charlatan- 
ism and to shun the evils of bigotry. The best teacher- 
training includes a broad, general culture as well as an ex- 
tended pedagogic training. 

This volume is the product of a critical study by a master 
mind of the colonial and (commonwealth epochs in the un- 
folding of a great people. That the author is also an able 
teacher and student of pedagogic truth lends additional 
weight and value to his discussion. 

M. G. B. 

July 4, 1900. 



CONTENTS. 

INTRODUCTION. 

SECTION I. 

PAGE 

The Pennsylvania Indians 9 

SECTION II. 

The Dutch, Swedes, and EngUsh in the Delaware Valley Prior to 
1681 17 

SECTION III. 

The Society of Friends and William Penn 30 

CHAPTER I. 

1681-1682. 

Charter to William Penn — Name given to Province — Colonel Wil- 
liam Markham and Lord Baltimore — Purchases from Indians — 
Terms to Settlers — Philadelphia — Religious Liberty — Funda- 
mental Constitutions — Charter to the Colony — Laws agreed 
upon in England 41 

CHAPTER IL 

1682-1684. 

William Penn reaches Pennsylvania — First Assembly — Great Law 
— Growth of Colony — Indian Treaty — Indians and Rum — Witch- 
craft — Schools — Welsh Settlers — German Settlers — Penn's return 
to England 54 

CHAPTER IIL 

1684-1692. 

Thomas Lloyd — Impeachment of More — Disputes — Cave Dwellers 
— John Blackwell — Alarms of AVar — Penn in Trouble — Penn to 
Thomas Lloyd — The Lower Counties — George Keith — Bradford 66 



viii CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

1692-1701. 

PAGE 

Governor Fletcher — War Disputes — Penn Restored — Charter of 
1696 — Markham and Privateers — Penn's Second Visit — Charter 
of 1701 — Philadelphia Chartered — Character of Government — 
Separation of Lower Counties — Penn and the Fords — Penn in 
Prison — The Maryland Boundary Line 78 



CHAPTER V. 

1701-1712. 

Condition of Province — Andrew Hamilton — James Logan — David 
Lloyd — Colonel Quarry — Differences between Council and As- 
sembly — Attack of Lloyd on Penn — Governor Evans — His Mis- 
takes — Governor Gookin — War Supplies — Reaction towards 
Penn — Projected Sale of Province to Crown — Penn's Letter to 
His Colonists 95 



CHAPTER VL 

1712-1726. 

Gookin' s Salary — The Oath Troubles — Jonathan Hayes — Stiffen- 
ing the Penal Code — Governor Keith — Death of Penn — His 
Heirs — Economy in Administration — Issues of Paper INIoney — 
Attack on Logan — His Vindication 109 



CHAPTER A^IL 

1726-1736. 

Gordon's Good Administration — More Paper Money — Andrew 
Hamilton's Letter — Death of Hannah Penn — Her Sons 118 



CHAPTER VIIL 

1736-1754. 

Governor Thomas — Spanish War — Contest between Governor and 
Assembly — Isaac Norris, 2d — Benjamin Franklin — Walking 
Purchase — French War — War Taxes — More Disputes — Paper 
Issues — Albanj' Congress — Governor Hamilton — Indian Trou- 
bles 123 



CONTENTS. ix 



CHAPTER IX. 

1754-1760. 

PAGE 

Ggvernor Morris — Contest with the Assembly — Second War with 
France — Braddock's Campaign — Frontier Warfare — Parties — 
Taxing the Proprietaries — Militia Laws — Resignation of Quakers 
— Indian Treaties — Franklin sent to England — Governors Denny 
and Hamilton 140 



CHAPTER X. 

1760-1764. 

Pontiac's Conspiracy — Bouquet's Campaign — John Penn— Murder 
of Conestoga Indians — Paxton Riot — Dislike of the Proprietaries 
— Agitation for a Crown Colony — John Dickinson — Joseph Gal- 
loway 151 



CHAPTER XL 

1764-1776. 

Union of the Colonies — English Aggression — The Stamp Act — 
Stamp- Act Congress — Writings of Dickinson — Non-importation 
— Paul Revere' s Mission — Joseph Reed — Charles Thomson — 
Thomas Mifflin — First Continental Congress — Franklin comes 
Home — Governor Penn — Second Continental Congress — Senti- 
ment of Pennsylvania — Position of the Quakers — Agitation for 
Independence — Articles of Confederation — Reorganization of 
the Government of Pennsylvania — Declaration of Independence 
—Death of Penn's Charter 163 



CHAPTER XIL 



Maryland Boundary— Connecticut Claims — " Yankee War"— Vir- 
ginia and New York Claims— Indian War— Composition of 
Population— The Germans— Sects and Church People — Zinzen- 
dorf, Schlatter, and Muhlenberg— Sower— The Scotch-Irish— 
Episcopalian Schools and Colleges — University of Pennsylvania 
—Educated Men— Franklin and His Institutions— Philadelphia 
Architecture— The State House— Industrial Condition 181 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK XIII. 

1776-1790. 

PAGE 

Council of Safety — State Constitution of 1776 — Revolutionary 
Party in Power — Loyalists and Peace Men — Campaign of 1776 — 
Battle of Trenton — Campaign of 1777 — Battles of Brandy wine 
and Germantown — Valley Forge — British in Philadelphia — 
Evacuation of Pliiladelphia — Arnold — Carlisle and Roberts — 
Riots in the City — Attack on the College — Wyoming ^Massacre 
and Campaign of Sullivan — Yorktown — Dickinson and Smith 
restored to Favor — Robert Morris — Penns bought out — Slavery 
Abolished — Revolt of the Continentals — Colleges — Franklin 
President — Constitution of the United States — Pennsylvania 
ratifies 209 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1790-1799. 

Philadelphia the Capital City — President Washington and Na- 
tional Politics — Hamilton and the United States Bank — State 
Constitution of 1790 — Governor Mifflin — Re\ival of Industry — 
Colleges — Yellow Fever — Whiskey Rebellion — Albert Gallatin — 
Robert Morris — Fries Rebellion — Dr. George Logan — Removal of 
Government to Washington and Lancaster 230 

CHAPTER XV. 

1799-1810. 

Governor McKean — Federal Mistakes — Duane — Election of 1800 — 
Demand for a Pure Democracy — Simon Snyder — State Politics 
— Gideon Olmstead's Claim — Internal Improvements — Steam 
Navigation — Stephen Girard — Pittsburg — Effect of the Em- 
bargo — Literary Standing of Philadelphia — General Crudeness . 248 

CHAPTER XVL 

1810-1817. 

War of 1812 — Pennsylvania's Part — Prejudice against Common 
Law — Harrisburg made Capital — The United States Bank — 
Stephen Girard — Alexander J. Dallas — Effect of the War on 
Industr}^ — Inflation and Depression — State Finances — Banks — 
Emigration and Immigration — (Trowth of Charitable Institu- 
tions 263 



CONTENTS. xi 



CHAPTER XVII. 

1817-1829. 

PAGE 

Campaign of 1817 — Findlay and Hiester — Duane and Binns — 
Growth of Nominating Convention — Philadelphia and Pittsburg 
—Coal Industry — Canals — The Tariff and Pennsylvania — The 
Death of Federalism — Public Improvements and the Growth of 
the Debt 276 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

1829-1837. 

Antimasonry — Wolf and Ritner — The National Bank and Nich- 
olas Biddle — Andrew Jackson and Pennsylvania — Governor 
Wolf, Thaddeus S.tevens, and Public Schools 291 



CHAPTER XIX. 

1837-1838. 

The Constitution of 1838 — The Slavery Issue — Pennsylvania 
for Freedom — Antislavery Troubles in Philadelphia — Panic of 
1837— Trouble in the State Treasurv— The Buckshot War 309 



CHAPTER XX. 

1838-1850. 

Ritner' s and Porter's Messages — Deficits and Mismanagement — 
Public Works — Riots in Philadelphia — Girard's Will and Col- 
lege — State Politics — The Harrison Campaign — Tariff — Mexican 
War — Wilmot Proviso — Improvements — Graham's Magazine — 
Bavard Tavlor and T. Buchanan Read 322 



CHAPTER XXI. 

1850-1860. 

Growth of Antislavery Sentiment — The Underground Railroad — 
The Know-Nothings — Politics — The Republican Party — The 
Fremont Campaign — Sale of Internal Improvements — Payment 
of State Debt — Political Morality Grows — School Questions — 
Consolidation and Growth of Philadelphia 337 



xii CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
1860-1870. 

PAGE 

Curtin's Election — Political Reaction — Mustering of Troops — 
Pennsylvania in the War — Invasions of Pennsylvania — Battle 
of Gettysburg — Soldiers' Orphans Schools — Decrease of Debt — 
State Politics 350 



CHAPTER XXTII. 

1870-1882. 

The Constitution of 1873 — The Panic of 1873 — State Finances — 
Strike and Riots — The Philadelphia Centennial — Conclusion . . . 361 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

¥¥ 

PAGE 

William Penn Frontispiece. 

James Logan 97 

Thomas Penn 122 

Benjamin Franklin 127 

John Dickinson 160 

Charles Thomson 170 

Robert Proud 198 

William Smith 200 

David Rittenhouse 202 

Benjamin Rush 203 

Anthony Wayne 216 

James Wilson 220 

Robert Morris 223 

Frederick A. Muhlenberg 230 

Thomas Mifflin 234 

Albert Gallatin 242 

Thomas McKean 248 

Robert Fulton 255 

Stephen Girard 257 

James Buchanan 264 

George W^olf 292 

Thaddeus Stevens 305 

Bayard Taylor 336 

Andrew G. Curtin 350 

George G. Meade 354 

Winfield S. Hancock 360 

Map of Pennsylvania 373 

xiii 



INTRODUCTION. 

SECTION I. 

THE PENNSYLVANIA INDIANS. 

When the white settlers came to America in the seven- 
teenth century, they found the country very sparsely peopled 
with Indians. What was their origin and how many gener- 
ations they had lived here are still unsettled questions. It 
has been estimated there may have been three hundred 
thousand within tlie limits of the present United States and 
six thousand in Pennsylvania. These figures are of very 
doubtful authority, but it is certain that their nomadic 
habits and manner of procuring their food required great 
stretches of territory. Their little villages were widely 
separated, and even their great councils were not largely 
attended. 

The Indians east of the Mississippi, as indicated by their 
language and customs, were of two great branches or stocks. 
The Algonquin included all who dwelt along the sea-coast 
from Labrador to Georgia, as well as those who inhabited 
the country between the Great Lakes and the Ohio Eiver. 
They were called Pequods and Narragansetts where they met 
the settlers of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Mohegans 
in the Hudson Valley, Lenni-Lenai^e in New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania, Nanticokes around the Chesapeake, Pow- 
hatans and Shawnees in the South. 

The other stock was the Iroquois. They lived in Ontario, 
Western New York, and Northern Pennsylvania, and down 
the valley of the Susquehanna to the Maryland border, and 
were almost surrounded by the Algonquin. The Cherokees 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

and Tuscaroras of the South were their offshoots. Iroquois 
is their French name. The Lenape of Pennsylvania called 
them Mengwe, which the whites corrupted into Mingoes. 
Later, their confederacy was known as the Five Nations, 
made up of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, 
and Senecas. To this compact the Tuscaroras were after- 
wards admitted, making the Six Nations. 

The Lenape claim to represent the parent stock of the 
Algonquin. The other tribes called them grandfather. 
They have a tradition that they once lived far beyond the 
Mississippi Eiver, but learning of lands to the eastward they 
formed with the Mengwe an alliance for conquest, crossed 
the great river, drove the Indians there to the South and 
divided the lands between them. Another tradition, better 
supported by linguistic considerations, is that their original 
home was near Hudson Bay and that their emigration had 
been towards the South and West. 

The Iroquois and the Lenape were traditional enemies. 
The advantage when the Pennsylvania settlers arrived was 
with the Northern tribes, and the Lenape were in a state of 
semi- vassalage. They were called '^ women,'' and were de- 
nied the right to declare war or even to sell land. 

The settlers of Pennsylvania thought it wise to buy first 
of the Lenape or Delaware Indians and then of their feudal 
lords, and the Five Nations took several conspicuous op- 
portunities to impress upon the unlucky Delawares their 
subject condition. These attempts were, however, made 
only in the presence of an overwhelming force of sympa- 
thetic whites. 

The Lenape of the Delaware Vallej" were divided into 
three sub-tribes : (1) The Minsi or Minisinks who lived 
in the mountainous I'egions above the junction with the 
Lehigh ; (2) the TTnami whose lands reached from the Le- 
high southward, including the present site of Philadelphia, 
until they touched those of (3) the Unalachtigo whose central 
residence was about Wilmington, Delaware. It was with 
the two latter tribes that Penn made his celebrated treaties. 
The first had for its totem the wolf, the second the turtle, 



THE PENNSYLVANIA INDIANS. 11 

aud the third the turkey. The Unami were accorded the 
pre-eminence, their symbol meaning the great tortoise upon 
which the world rested. There were also various tribes of 
the Lenape in New Jersey. 

The Shawnees were originally a Southern tribe. They 
were a restless, roving set. While acknowledging the 
Lenape as grandfather, they were not always filial in their 
relations. About 1700 a considerable number of them 
wandered northward and settled in Pennsylvania, and with 
the Delawares, after the estrangement of about 1750, became 
the most vigorous enemies of the whites. A tribe of the 
Iroquois dwelling on the Susquehanna in Lancaster County, 
the Conestogas, had also an unfortunate history in their re- 
lations to the whites and are frequently mentioned. 

The government of the Indians was effective for their 
purposes. 

They had no writings of consequence ; but oral traditions 
had great vitality. The head man of the tribe was the 
Sachem, and the wise men with him formed the council. 
His authority extended over his tribe in relation to peace 
questions only. In case of war a council composed of ap- 
proved braves made all decisions. Important conclusions 
were reached only after grave deliberation, in which experi- 
ence and wisdom had their due weight. An Indian council 
was a dignified and oftentimes an eloquent and far-seeing- 
body. 

The vividness with which treaties were handed down 
from father to son made them fairly secure. While per- 
fidious to the last degree to confessed enemies, the Indians 
were faithful to their allies. In Pennsylvania they stood by 
their compacts with the whites, and were quick to see and 
appreciate a similar spirit in the other party. Nor were 
the agreements of their Sachems put aside as invalid by 
rebellious subjects. Eespect for authority, the sacredness 
of decisions regularly made, obedience to the acts and the 
traditions of their tribe were kneaded into their early edu- 
cation. The belts of wampum and the parchments and 
papers containing their foreign obligations were, at periodic 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

intervals, laid out before tlie young men of the tribe and, 
with solemn advice, each document was connected with its 
peculiar bond, and its sacredness impressed upon them. 
There were, of course, unsettled questions between the 
tribes, and this required the purchase of land over and 
over again from different claimants, but an open, well- 
understood sale was not denied or evaded. 

The government of the tribe acknowledged its accounta- 
bility for the crimes of individuals. A murderer of a white 
was denounced and surrendered for punishment. There 
were, of course, reprobates who would not live within the 
laws of the tribe, and were looked upon with contempt. So 
long as their crimes were petty they were tolerated. But 
if they passed beyond a certain grade of criminality they 
were disowned by the tribe and could make no claim for 
protection. 

The position of a Sachem was not hereditary in strict line 
of descent, though it was perhaps confined to certain fami- 
lies. Among the Lenape the chief of each sub -tribe was 
selected by those of the other two. The Sachem of the 
Unami, the Turtle Chief, was the acknowledged head of the 
Lenape nation. 

William Penn said with regard to these Delaware Indians, 
''Do not abuse them, but let them have but justice and j-ou 
win them." The experience of all those who treated them 
fairly seemed to confirm this sentiment. It was not alone 
the purchase of their lands which favorably inclined them 
to the Pennsylvania settlers in the early days, but the evi- 
dent justice which characterized all the dealings of the 
whites. To this they responded fully. Even when ex- 
asperated by inequitable treatment in later times, they dis- 
tinguished between the unarmed Quaker, who quietly pur- 
sued his labors among them, and the armed frontiersman of 
other sects. Only three Friends were murdered by them, 
and these suffered because they became distrustful ; one 
went to a fort, the other two took guns to their fields, where 
the Indians had seen them many a time before unarmed. 
The dependence on warlike instruments induced a belief 



THE PENNSYLVANIA INDIANS. 13 

that they had given up their Quaker connectionSj and they 
suffered with the rest. The whole Pennsylvania experience 
proves that the Indians, degraded in many respects as the 
whites found them, and still more degraded as they left them, 
possessed in a high degree the ideas of fidelity to obliga- 
tions, gratitude for favors, and honorable response to fair 
treatfnent. 

The missionary Heckewelder says, ' ' William Penn, said 
they, when he treated with them, adopted the ancient 
mode of their ancestors, and convened them under a grove 
of shady trees where the little birds in the boughs were 
warbling their sweet songs. In commemoration of these 
conferences (which are always to the Indians a subject of 
pleasing remembrance), they frequently assembled together 
in the woods, in some shady spot as nearly as possible similar 
to those where they used to meet their brother Mignon (their 
name for Penn), and there lay all his ' words' or speeches 
with those of his descendants on a blanket or clean piece 
of bark, and with great satisfaction went successively over 
the whole. This practice (which I have frequently wit- 
nessed) continued until the year 1780, when the disturb- 
ances which then took place put an end to it, probably 
forever." 

General W. H. Harrison says of the Delaware Indians, 
' • A long and intimate knowledge of them in peace and war, 
as enemies and friends, has left upon my mind the most 
favorable impression of their character for bravery, gener- 
osity, and fidelity to their engagements." 

Before the traditions of their acquaintance with the whites 
had disappeared, their story as told to friendly missionaries 
was most pathetic. They met the ^^ Long Knives" in Vir- 
ginia, the Dutchmen in IsTew York, and the '^ Yangees" in 
i^ew England. In all cases their experience was the same. 
They gave them land and provisions, but the whites wanted 
more and more. Land was plenty, and for a long time they 
granted everything. Then the whites demanded their best 
sections and took them by force. They protested and finally 
fought, only to be conquered and retire. They were weak- 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

ened by rum, decimated by small- pox and other diseases, 
overcome by craft and guile, and in a century from the time 
of the first settlement of Virginia the best of their chiefs 
were mourning over the results which, in the face of a 
general degradation, they and their people were too weak 
successfully to resist. 

The Delawares cultivated their fields and did not depend 
on the chase alone. Corn was their principal food, but they 
also had squashes, beans, sweet i)otatoes, and tobacco. Wil- 
liam Penn, who lived among them a short time, says, " Theii- 
diet is maize or Indian corn, divers ways prepared, some- 
times roasted in the ashes, sometimes beaten, or boiled with 
water, which they call homine. They also make cakes not 
unpleasant to eat. They have, likewise, several sorts of 
beans and peas that are good nourishment, and the woods 
and rivers are their larder.*' 

They made simple vessels of clay, effective but inferior 
in decorations to those of many savage tribes. They had 
copper, derived either from the Lake Superior region or 
from northern Xew York. The most of their instruments 
were, however, of stone, and they showed remarkable skill 
in their manufactui-e. They made mortars and pestles for 
pounding their corn, axes for weapons and for wood cut- 
ting, while innumerable quartz, jasper, and slate spear- and 
arrow-heads have been ploughed up by Pennsylvania farmers. 

They knew how to extract paints and dyes from various 
woods and vegetables, while the white, red, and blue clays 
quarried from the neighborhood of White and Eed Clay 
Creeks in Pennsylvania and Delaware made the country 
widely known among them as the Place of Paint. 

With these paints they became quite skilful in picto- 
graphic signs. They wrote history and preserved the tablets, 
which, unfortunately, were usually on j^erishable material, 
though a few engraved stones have been dug up. They 
recorded on trees the result of a hunt or warlike foray in 
signs any Indian of their tribe could readily understand. 
Two instances may be given to show how readily an Indian 
turned to signs to express his meaning. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA INDIANS. 15 

In 1701 William Penn asked an Indian interpreter to give 
him some idea of the national notion of God. Not being 
able to readily answer this in words, he drew a number 
of concentric circles, and in the centre placed the ^^ Great 
Man." 

A Shawnee had a horse which was claimed by a white 
man. The Indian insisted on his ownership, but the other 
being unwilling to relinquish his claim, the Indian seized a 
piece of charcoal from the hearth and on the door drew two 
pictures, which were so vivid that the settler could not fail 
to understand. One represented the white man taking the 
horse, the other the Indian scalping the white man. The 
horse remained the property of the Indian. 

They preserved their myths and records on notched, 
burned, or painted sticks, each mark indicating some par- 
ticular event or story, which was duly impressed on each 
generation. Each stick was about six inches long, and they 
were tied in bundles and placed in the care of a custodian. 

Their ideas of j)roi3erty were communistic. Though they 
sold land, it took them a long time to absorb the white idea 
of exclusive ownership). They only sold, in their estima- 
tion, the i^rivilege to live on it, without diminishing their 
own claims to hunting and fishing privileges. An Indian 
placed his horses in the mowing field of the missionary 
Hecke welder. When remonstrated with, he replied, ^'Can 
you make the grass grow f Nobody can except the Great 
Man. The grass which grows out of the earth is common 
to all, the game in the woods is common to all. For friend- 
ship's sake, however, I shall never j)ut my horses in your 
meadow again." 

While liberal to their friends, they were, in the highest 
degree, vindictive and cruel to their enemies. A belt of 
black wampum with a red hatchet painted on it was a symbol 
of war, and war of the most vigorous kind followed. They 
delighted in a cxuiet inroad into the heart of the enemy's 
territory, a sudden and murderous blow when they were 
supposed to be far away, and as sudden a retreat. They 
knew no mercy to man, woman, or child. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

Their skill in deceiving their enemies, in counteracting 
their enemy's deceptions, in reading signs unobserved by 
white men, were remarkable. Their imitations of the cries 
of wild animals would lure their enemies into an ambush, 
or be the means of signalling to their friends. 

The practice of scalping seems to have been recognized 
by all Indians. The scalp was the trophy of war. They 
shaved their head, except the one tuft which furnished to 
their victor his legitimate reward. The number of scalps 
secured was a measure of a warrior's bravery, and the first 
ambition of a young brave was gratified when he could 
show this proof of his jiowers. In some colonies the whites 
offered rewards for scalps, thus recognizing the practice. 

Unless prisoners had aggravated their captors by peculiar 
cruelty on the part of themselves or their people, they were 
not harshly treated. After an unsuccessful war, or one of 
especial barbarity, the lot of the j)risoner was dreadful in- 
deed ; otherwise he was adopted by the tribe or held for 
ransom. In the midnight raids on villages or lonely settle- 
ments, Indian success meant barbarity in its extremest 
forms ; but from this Pennsylvania was preserved for 
seventy-three years by the wisdom of its government. 

The first ordeal of the prisoner was to run to a painted 
post between two lines of armed warriors. His salvation 
lay in his promptitude and pluck. Any faltering or falling 
meant death or severe treatment. But a vigorous, fearless 
run insured respect and relative immunity from attack. 
Once at the post, he was safe till his fate was determined in 
council. 

A better side of Indian nature was their absolute respect 
for the i)erson of an ambassador. No stress of war, nor i)er- 
sonal hatred^ nor great advantage to be gained, could temj)t 
a tribe to violate the rights of this sacred personage. No 
civilized countries ever held their international code more 
inviolably. 



SECTION II. 

THE DUTCH, SWEDES, AND ENGLISH IN THE DELA- 
WARE VALLEY PRIOR TO 1681. 



a 



On the 28th of August, 1609, Henry Hudson, in the 

Half Moon, ' ' records : ' ' Then we found the Land to 
trend away to the North- West with a great Bay and Rivers. 
But the Bay we found Shoald , . . He that will thoroughly 
discover this great Bay must have a small Pinnasse that 
must draw but four or five foote water, to sound before 
him." 

Hudson, though an Englishman, was in the employ of 
the Dutch East India Company, and was in search of a 
northwest passage. He had been driven back by the ice 
and fogs of the north, had sailed to Virginia, was now coast- 
ing northward, and had entered Delaware Bay. He did 
not deem it worth further exploration, but sailed again 
northward, and discovered N^ew York Harbor and the river 
that bears his name. 

A doubtful record indicates that Lord Delaware ^'touched 
at Delaware Bay on his passage to Virginia," and on the 
strength of this, fortified by future English possession, his 
name became permanently associated with the bay and 
river. 

By virtue of Hudson's discovery, the Dutch claimed pos- 
session of the North and South Rivers (Hudson and Dela- 
ware) and the adjacent country, which they called New 
Netherland ; and in 1621 the West India Company was 
organized to make settlements and develop trade. 

Prior to this, in 1614, Captain Cornelius Jacobson May was 
sent as the commander of one of five vessels fitted out by 
another Dutch comi)any to explore the country. He sailed 
along the Jersey coast, mapping it as he went, until he 

2 17 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

reached the southern point, which he named for himself: 
Across the bay he gave the name of a town of Friesland — 
Hindlopen — to the prominent cape there. Another of the 
vessels was burned in Manhattan River, but the enterprising 
captain built a new craft, the ^' TJiirusf'' ('^ Restless" ), the 
first vessel of European construction made in America. 
\yith this he explored and mapped the Delaware River as 
far as the present site of Philadelphia. 

In 1623 Captain May was again sent out, this time by the 
Dutch West India Company, to take possession of South 
River. He sailed up to the site of the present town of 
Gloucester, on the New Jersey side, four miles below Phila- 
delphia, and erected Fort Nassau, the first Euroi)ean settle- 
ment in these regions. The fort was soon abandoned, but 
shortly afterwards reoccupied by the Dutch from New 
Amsterdam,* who made it their headquarters for trade 
with the neighboring Indians. 

Another Dutch settlement was attempted in 1630, near 
Lewes, in Delaware, which they called Swaanendael, but the 
Indians murdered the entii-e colony, thirty-two in number. 

In the meantime the Dutch at Fort Nassau were impressed 
with the advantages to be gained by a fort on the river 
opposite, — the Schuylkill, — to command the beaver trade 
of that great valley. They constructed Fort Beversrede, 
and bought of the Indian chiefs '*the Schuylkill and ad- 
joining lands," which presumably included the whole of 
the i^resent city of Philadelphia, f 

The Dutch had, therefore, command of the South River. 
By discovery, or purchase, or settlement, they had secured 
possession of both sides of the river near the mouth of 
the Schuylkill, and of both sides of the bay at the capes. 
Another nation now appeared to contest their supremacy. 

The founder of the West India Company was William 



* Afterwards New York. 

t There is some doubt about the treaty. It is possibly a fiction put 
forward by the Dutch at a later date to strengthen their claim to the 
country. 



THE DUTCH, SWEDES, AND ENGLISH, ETC. 19 

Usselinx, a Belgian. He became dissatisfied with his posi- 
tion in the company, and in 1624 persuaded Gustavus 
Adolphus of Sweden to issue a charter for a new company 
for foreign trade. Much was expected of this enterprise 
for the home country, but the wars in which Gustavus was 
engaged caused the postponement of any actual expedition 
till after the death of the king. Chancellor Oxenstiern 
then took charge of the project, and at last, in December, 
1637, two small vessels, filled 'with Swedes and Finns, set 
sail for the South Eiver of New Netherland. 

The leader of this expedition was Peter Minuit, a Dutch- 
man, who was acquainted with American settlements by 
his residence of six years in New Amsterdam as Director- 
General. On the 29th of March, 1638, Minuit purchased 
from the Indians all the west shore of the Delaware from 
Bombay Hook, in Delaware, to the river Schuylkill, with- 
out any interior limits. This country he named New 
Sweden, and built a fort where Wilmington now stands. 
This he called Fort Christina, in honor of his queen. The 
English in Virginia and the Dutch in New Netherland ob- 
jected to this settlement as an invasion of their rights, but 
Minuit went on without heeding the protests. 

The little Swedish colony was soon reduced to twenty- 
three. They kept up a flourishing traffic, but were about 
to leave for New Amsterdam, suj)posiug themselves de- 
serted by their friends at home, when a Swedish vessel ap- 
peared, laden with emigrants. The new governor, Hollen- 
der, enlarged his boundaries by purchasing of the Indians 
the west bank of the river up to Trenton Falls, despite the 
protests of the Dutch. In the two years following, several 
other Swedish vessels arrived, and in 1642 a third governor, 
Johan Printz, was commissioned to carry on the administra- 
tion of justice, to maintain the Swedish Lutheran religion, 
to keep a monopoly of the Indian trade, and to defend 
against all others the country on the west side of the river, 
from Cape Henlopen to Trenton Falls, and on the east from 
Cape May to Mantua Creek, nearly opposite Chester. This 
constituted the boundaries of New Sweden. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

The Dutch and the Swedes were thus competitors for the 
land and the trade of the Delaware Valley, — the Dutch, by 
Adrtue of discovery, and the Swedes, of a larger and better 
organized colony. 

The English objected to being left out of the arrangement. 
They claimed that to New England on the north and Vir- 
ginia and Maryland on the south belonged all the inter- 
vening territory. In 1635 a company of about a dozen Eng- 
lishmen from Connecticut sailed up the Delaware River and 
undertook to capture Fort Nassau. They were captured 
and sent to Manhattan, where they were given their liberty. 

Seven years later another jDarty from Connecticut estab- 
lished itself near the present town of Salem, New Jersey. 
Still another, the Dutch Council says, ''had the audacity 
to land, in the South River, opposite to our Fort Nassau, 
where they made a beginning of settling on the Schuylkill, 
without any commission of a potentate." So the Council 
resolves ^^that it is our duty to drive these English from 
thence in the best manner possible.'' This they proceeded 
to do, seizing the beaver skins collected. 

During the same summer a x)estilence seems to have 
largely broken up the Dutch settlement, and the remainder 
of the English being driven out by the Swedes, or required 
to promise allegiance to them, the latter were for a time 
left in control of the river. 

Governor Printz with some ceremony established himself 
on the Island of Tinicum, a little below the mouth of the 
Schuylkill, where he built himself a house and a fort, 
armed with cannon. He strengthened Fort Christina, built 
another across the river commanding the channel, which he 
called Fort Elfsborg, and still another on an island at the 
mouth of the Schuylkill. His settlers cultivated tobacco, 
wheat, rye, and barley, but were prevented from establish- 
ing a flourishing Indian trade by the neglect of their home 
company to supply the necessary articles of barter. Their 
relations with the natives were friendly, and when, in 1644, 
some whites were killed, the neighboring chiefs denied com- 
plicity and made all possible apologies. 



THE DUTCH, SWEDES, AND ENGLISH, ETC. 21 

There were never more than two hundred or three hun- 
dred Swedes in all, and part of these were bond-servants who 
could not leave the colony. The settlers were loyal to their 
old country, its religion, language, and customs. ^'Divine 
service,'' says Printz, ''is performed here in the good, old 
Swedish tongue." They were encouraged to attempt to 
bring the Indians to a knowledge of the true religion. 
" Adorn your little church after the Swedish fashion in dis- 
tinction from the Hollanders and English, shunning all 
leaven of Calvinism." They also endeavored to keep all 
foreign words out of their Swedish speech, and to give 
Swedish names to all the geographical features of the coun- 
try, so as to make New Sweden the counterpart of the 
mother country. 

The English did not trouble the colony, but the Dutch 
claims could not be put aside, and they had Manhattan 
Island inconveniently near as a base of supplies. Around 
the site of Philadelphia there were frequent contests. 
Printz demolished the Dutch houses erected on the Schuyl- 
kill, cut down the trees around their fort, and by his supe- 
rior numbers and untiring vigor annoyed them greatly. 
The Dutch were unable to stand this indefinitely. In 1650 
their governor, Stuyvesant, brought an expedition from 
New Amsterdam, too strong to be resisted, built Fort Casi- 
mir (New Castle, Delaware), near Fort Christina, and col- 
lected toll on all boats going up and down the river, aban- 
doning, however. Fort Nassau, as too far inland. 

Printz had become wearied of his heavy and unsupported 
labors, and sailed in a Dutch ship to England. The soldiers 
and servants, not happy in the country, deserted at every 
opportunity. Had it not been for another expedition, de- 
spatched in 1654 from Gottenburg, there would soon have 
been an end of New Sweden. There was no difficulty now 
in obtaining emigrants. A hundred families had to be left 
behind. Three hundred and fifty persons, including women 
and children, sailed by the "Ornen," and on May 18th 
arrived in Delaware Bay. The new governor, Eising, re- 
newed the treaties with the Indians, by which the land was 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

conveyed to the Swedes, drove the Dutch from Fort Casi- 
mir, and with a colony of three hundred and sixty-eight, 
'•including Hollanders," with large patches of cleared 
ground, and abundance of fruit, grain, and cattle, felt him- 
self at the head of a x^rosperous colony. 

They had a flourishing mill on Cobb's Creek (in what is 
now Delaware County), where was ''ground both fine and 
coarse flour, and was going early and late." Their beaver 
trade and tobacco crops had assumed large dimensions and 
opened abundant prospects for European commerce. Other 
emigrants were now willing to start. The fame of the 
beauty and resources of ^ew Sweden was growing at home, 
and the Dutch and the English seemed practically excluded 
from the river. 

But this new prosperity constituted the greatest danger. 
The Dutch had never given up their claims to the river, and 
now saw that vigorous action was necessary or the country 
would be hopelessly in the hands of the Swedes. A little 
fleet conveying six hundred men was assembled in l^ew 
Amsterdam in August, 1655, and a short two days' voyage 
placed them in the South Eiver. Fort Elfsborg was found 
in ruins, Fort Casimir retaken, and Christina threatened 
into submission. The whole affair was bloodless, the strength 
of the Dutch being overwhelming. The capitulation which 
followed embraced the transfer of the sovereignty of Kew 
Sweden to the Dutch. The Swedes were to be allowed to re- 
main on the Delaware, and were to be protected in the exercise 
of their religion, taking oaths of allegiance to Holland and 
the Dutch West India Company. Those who wished were 
to be conveyed to Sweden free of expense. These were few in 
number. 'New Sweden had become their home, and future 
immigration, even under Dutch and English sujjremacy, 
slightly increased the Swedish population. Their little 
settlements, mainly on the west side between ^ew Castle and 
Philadelphia, developed into well- organized, law-abiding 
communities, quietly tilling their grounds and living in peace 
with their Indian neighbors. While under Dutch control 
they remained Swedish. Very few others actually settled 



THE DUTCH, SWEDES, AND ENGLISH, ETC. 23 

among them. For twenty-five years after the Dutch con- 
quest they constituted the majority of the white inhabitants 
in the Delaware Valley. Their descendants mingled with 
the English settlers who followed them, and they lost their 
national identity, giving, however, their names and their 
traits to the composite population which began to come in 
about 1682. 

Evert Peterson, who came over in 1657, as schoolmaster, 
reported that there were only twenty families in New 
Amstel, recently Fort Casimir, mostly Swedes. He soon 
had a school of twenty-five children, probably the first 
established on the river. 

The Swedes along the river were objects of suspicion. 
They ma&e the reasonable request to be allowed to remain 
neutral in the event of any war in which their native 
country might be engaged, and this was supposed to indi- 
cate disaffection to the Dutch rulers. It was intended to 
deprive them of all official positions, but the inherent difS- 
culties of language were too great. At one time an edict 
went out to remove all Swedes and Finns to one com- 
munity, and the southern part of the present city of 
Philadelphia was selected as the spot. But they refused to 
go, and means were not at hand to coerce them. Their 
numerical superiority and their command of the agricul- 
tural and commercial resources of the valley made them 
too powerful to be removed at will. In 1659 there were 
estimated to be two hundred families of Swedes within the 
limits of the West India Company's possessions on the river, 
and a much smaller number of Dutch. 

Charles II., restored to the throne of his father, resolved 
to press his claims to the Dutch possessions of the New 
World. As a first step, he transferred, in 1664, on paper, 
the whole of New Netherland to his brother, the Duke of 
York. This included the present States of New York and 
New Jersey, hitherto undivided. The duke almost im- 
mediately, and in advance of possession, conveyed the New 
Jersey portion to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. 

It remained to make this paper contract good. Colonel 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

I^ichols set sail from Portsmouth, England, with four ves- 
sels and three hundred soldiers, and appeared before IN'ew 
Amsterdam in the latter part of August. Governor Stuy- 
vesant met him with a haughty demand to know his busi- 
ness, but finding resistance unavailing, came down from his 
lofty position, and entered into conference for a surrender. 
This was effected without the loss of a man or the firing of 
a gun. New Amsterdam became New York, in honor of 
the duke 5 the country between the Hudson and the Dela- 
ware, New Jersey, from the birthplace of Sir George Car- 
teret ; and the South Eiver, the Delaware. So they re- 
mained, except during a brief recapture by the Dutch in 
1673. 

The conquerors now turned their attention to the Dela- 
ware. Two vessels, under Sir Eobert Carr, appeared in 
October at New Amstel. The Dutch commander and 
soldiers were more stout-hearted or more imprudent than 
their New York brethren, and refused to surrender. An 
attack soon brought them to terms, and a disgraceful 
plunder by the English soldiers and sailors followed. 
Three of the Dutch were killed, and ten wounded. This 
was the first blood shed in all the contentions in the Dela- 
wai^e Valley among the whites. Carr sacked a Mennonite 
colony, seized upon the lands of the Dutch commanders, 
and sold the Dutch soldiers into slavery. The English lost 
nothing, and, as the only account is that of their com- 
mander, which attempts to palliate certain features, the 
conquest was probably rather a massacre and a loot than a 
fight. 

The Swedes apparently came under English control quite 
willingly, and the capture of New Amstel (now to be called 
New Castle) practically terminated Dutch rule on the river. 

The terms of the transfer were liberal. All persons were 
to be secure in their estates. All of&cers were to retain 
their posts. Liberty of conscience was to be respected. 
Any one might leave at his option, but all who remained 
must take an oath of allegiance to the new government, 
and then had all the liberties of English citizens. The 



THE DUTCH, SWEDES, AND ENGLISH, ETC. 25 

Swedes remained, as did most of the Dutch, and were soon 
blended with each other and with the English settlers, 
who now began slowly to come in. They were henceforth 
governed by officers appointed by the Duke of York. 
These were to advise with a council, and, as manifest by 
the names, the first council was not English. It consisted 
of Hans Block, Israel Helm, Peter Eambo, Peter Cock, 
and Peter Alricks, — three Swedes and two Dutch. Xew 
Castle was the central place of authority, and the fort 
there was renovated, and garrisoned with twenty- one men. 
Next in importance was probably Upland, now Chester. 
There was no representative government, but the laws of 
the Duke of York were apparently reasonable and satis- 
factory. 

There was little to disturb the quiet and slow progress of 
the colony for several years to come. A writer says, in 
1670, "There are very few inhabitants, and they mostly 
Swedes, Dutch, and Finns. The people are settled along 
the west side of the Delaware, sixty miles above New 
Castle, which is the principal town. The land is good for 
all sorts of English grain, and wants nothing but people to 
populate it, being capable of entertaining many hundred 
families." 

In 1673 a Dutch fleet appeared at New York. The fort 
surrendered and the whole country submitted. The Dutch 
control was re-established on the Delaware, and Dutch offi- 
cers appointed. After five months' possession, New Nether- 
land and the Delaware were again ceded to England by a 
treaty between England and Holland signed at Westmin- 
ster on February 19, 1675, which decreed the transfer of all 
territory taken in the war. 

These various cessions seem to have made little difference 
to the Delaware settlers. Both nations allowed liberty of 
conscience, and both used the same men of prominence in 
the affairs of State. 

During the decade beginning 1670 the population of the 
west side of the Delaware increased but slowly, if at all. 
Perhaps some of the Swedes emigrated to Maryland, and 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

there seemed to have been but little influx. In the last 
years of the decade there was a slight movement of the 
English Quakers, who had come in to people Xew Jersey, 
across the river, and Eobert AYade, who settled in Ches- 
ter, was perhaps the pioneer Quaker settler of Pennsylvania. 
His house was the meeting-place of the body from 1675 till 
the arrival of William Penn in 1682. 

To understand this migration we must briefly trace the 
History of 'New Jersey from the time of its cession by the 
Duke of York to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. 

As early as 1665 there were a number of settlements in 
East ^ew Jersey, around the towns of Shrewsbury, Middle- 
town, and Elizabeth. The latter place was in 1668 the seat 
of a Colonial Legislature. The province was, however, 
much distracted by a dispute with the proprietors about 
rents for land, and but little progress in settlement was 
making. 

The Society of Friends was the object of great persecution 
in England, and some of its members began to cast their 
eyes towards America, as the Puritans had done before 
them, to find a place of refuge. George Fox was interested, 
not for himself, for there was no intention to convey the 
whole society over the sea, but for such of his coreligionists 
as might think it right to escape persecution in this way. 
A Friend named Josiah Cole, who was often engaged in 
religious visits to Indians and others in America, had ap- 
parently been commissioned in 1660 to negotiate for an 
inland settlement, and had had interviews on the subject 
with the Susquehanna Indians. He found difBiculties in 
his way on account of an Indian war then prevailing. 

Defeated in this direction, the matter was dropped for a 
time. But a new opportunity more promising in its char- 
acter at last opened. Lord Berkeley was an old man, and 
seeing that American colonies for some time to come would 
not bring wealth to their owners, expressed himself as 
willing to sell his half of New Jersey. Though the colony 
was not as yet divided, his interests were purchased in 
1674 by John Fenwick and Edward Billinge for one thou- 



THE DUTCH, SWEDES, AND ENGLISH, ETC. 27 

sand pounds. Both were Quakers, and there seems to have 
been an understanding that the society at large should have 
the benefit of the purchase, and that the western side of the 
province should constitute their moiety. Two years later 
the line was run bisecting the colony from Little Egg Harbor 
to a point on the Delaware Eiver, in latitude 41°. 

But Fenwick and Billinge differed as to their respective 
interests, and in Quaker fashion referred their dispute to the 
arbitrament of William Penn, who thus for the first time 
had his attention drawn to American colonization. He 
gave one-tenth to Fenwick with a sum of money, and the 
remainder to Billinge. After some bickering the award 
was accepted. Billinge then became embarrassed in his 
finances, and transferred his nine-tenths to three Friends, 
William Penn, Gawen Laurie, and Nicholas Lucas for the 
benefit of his creditors. 

Fenwick, who appears to have been an energetic, though 
rather litigious, person, was active in promoting immigra- 
tion. He brought over in 1675 a boat-load of settlers, and 
found a pleasant and fertile spot on a creek emptying into the 
Delaware, to which he gave the name of Salem. From here 
the same year Eobert Wade went across to Upland. 

In the meantime, William Penn and his cotrustees were 
busy improving the estate of Edward Billinge. Some of 
his creditors, who were Friends, were induced to take tracts 
of land in extinguishment of their claims. Other tracts 
were sold outright, subject to future purchase from the 
Indians, and settlers began to come in. The trustees secured 
the co-operation of John Eldredge and Edmund Warner, to 
whom Fenwick had practically sold his share without re- 
nouncing in his own eyes the right to buy of the Indians 
and sell to settlers, and in 1676 organized a government with 
Eichard Hartshorne and two other Friends as commissioners. 

Eichard Hartshorne was a resident in East New Jersey, 
but was requested by the trustees to meet the other com- 
missioners at New Castle and select a site for a town higher 
up the river than John Fenwick had settled. In the letter 
of instructions to him we find a passage which betrays the 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

democratic spirit of William Penn. "There we lay a foun- 
dation for after-ages to understand their liberty as men and 
Christians, that they may not be brought in bondage but by 
their own consent ; for we put the power in the people, that 
is to say, they to meet and choose one honest man for each 
propriety, who hath subscribed to the concessions ; all these 
men to meet as an assembly, there to make and repeal laws, 
to choose a governor as a commissioner and twelve assistants 
to execute the laws during their pleasure ; so every man is 
capable to choose or be chosen. Xo man to be arrested, 
condemned, imprisoned, or molested in his estate or liberty 
but by twelve men of the neighborhood. Xo man to lie in 
prison for debt, but that his estate satisfy as far as it will, 
and be set at liberty to work. Xo person to be called in 
question or molested for his conscience or for worshipping 
according to his conscience.'' 

In 1677 a boat-load of emigrants, mostly Quakers, stopped 
at Sandy Hook to acquaint Governor Andros, the appointee 
of the Duke of York, of their intentions. For though a 
clear title had been obtained, they thought it a matter of 
policy to be assured of his good offices. The governor, 
after some real or pretended doubt of the propriety of 
granting liberty without an expressed permission from the 
duke, and a suggestion that while the soil was granted the 
government still remained in his hands, and a pompous 
declaration that he would defend his rights by the sword, 
offered finally to grant the necessary commission. 

Three of the principal Swedes of Upland were induced 
to become Indian interpreters, and land was bought ex- 
tending along the east side of the Delaware River, from 
Oldman's Creek, nearly opposite Wilmington, to Assunpink, 
above Trenton. 

There were two principal companies among the settlers, 
one composed of Yorkshire people, the other of Londoners. 
After taking separate sections, the one near Trenton, the 
other near Gloucester, they agreed to come together at a 
middle point ; and so, late in 1677, the town of Burlington 
was settled, and became for a time the chief place of West 



THE DUTCH. SWEDES, AND ENGLISH, ETC. 29 

New Jersey. The Yorkshire men took one side of the 
main street, and the Londoners the other. The Indians 
were peaceful and helpful, food was abundant, and during 
the mellow October weather the settlers felt as one of them 
wrote his friends at home : ''The country is so good, I do 
not see how it can be reasonably found fault with ;" urging 
a large emigration to occupy the vast stretches of fertile 
land. 

Such reports had their effect, and hundreds of Quakers, 
willing to escape the unreasonable persecution to which 
they were subjected in England, came to West Jersey. 
Some settled in Salem, the greater part went to Burlington. 
Some of these crossed to Pennsylvania, and secured a some- 
what doubtful title to land along the west bank of the 
Delaware by purchase from the Swedes or Indians. Their 
central positions were at the Falls of the Delaware, Shacka- 
maxon, Upland, New Castle, and Hoarkills. In 1681 a 
''yearly meeting" was established at Burlington, which 
embraced all Friends in the present States of New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, and Delaware. About fourteen hundred 
Quakers are supposed to have emigrated to New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania prior to Penn's coming. 

While West Jersey was thus rapidly filling up, East 
Jersey came into the market. That province had not been 
prosperous, and Sir George Carteret died in 1679, in debt. 
To pay the debts, the province was sold, and twelve Friends, 
at the head of whom was William Penn, became the pur- 
chasers. Eobert Barclay, of Urie, was made governor for 
life. The stream of Quaker settlement was turned in this 
direction, and was largely increased by Scots, who were 
hunted with great cruelty by the Eoyalists. 



SECTION III. 

THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND WILLIAM PENN. 

Quakerism arose in England in the midst of that seething 
religious excitement which characterized the middle decades 
of the seventeenth century. The sects in infinite variety 
were engaged each in persistent advocacy of its own claims, 
with a fervor born of a belief that all others were funda- 
mentally wrong and must be converted or destroyed. The 
Bible was the standard. The King James version had now 
permeated every corner of England, and men were trying 
every opinion by the meaning obvious to them of Scriptural 
passages. One text, for their purpose, was as good as 
another, Leviticus as obligatory as John, and all were in- 
fallible and of universal application, while the prophecies 
of Daniel and Eevelations opened up indefinite opportuni- 
ties for speculation. 

Into the melee of the religious discussion of the times 
came, in 1648, a new teaching, largely eclectic, but making 
such fresh combinations of doctrinal ideas as to produce a 
result in strong contrast with every religious body already 
in existence. 

George Fox was born twenty-four years before this, of poor 
but respectable parents, his father being generally called 
'^ righteous Christer," and his mother being ^' of the stock 
of the martyrs." He was an innocent and thoughtful youth, 
with a soul longing for peace with God and a knowledge 
of His will, which he sought in vain among the neighboring 
clergy of the various denominations. He was a great Bible 
reader, and, as a shepherd and shoemaker, meditated much 
concerning Divine things. But the ministers he found to be 
^^ miserable comforters, and I saw they were all as nothing 
to me ; for they could not reach to my condition." His 

30 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND WILLIAM PENN. 81 

Bible did not seem to give him the desired clue, and all was 
uncertainty and perplexity till '^As I had forsaken the 
priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those 
called the most experienced people ,• for I saw there was 
none among them all that could speak to my condition. 
When all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so 
that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell 
what to do, then, oh, then I heard a voice which said, 
' There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy con- 
dition' ; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy .... 
Though I read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of 
God, yet I knew him not but by revelation, as He who 
hath the key did open, and as the Father of Life drew me 
to His Son by His Spirit. Then the Lord gently led me 
along, and let me see His love, which was endless and 
eternal, surpassing all the knowledge that men have in the 
natural state or can get by history or books." This direct 
revelation, as he believed it to be, was followed by other 
^'openings," which gradually cleared up his mind to his 
own satisfaction, guided him in his daily actions and preach- 
ings, and supplied him with the body of doctrine on which 
Quakerism was built. 

With intense vigor and undaunted courage he began the 
delivery of his message. It was hard for the English world 
to hear it, and yet it was pressed upon them in the " steeple- 
houses," the streets, the fields, and the dwelling-places of 
rich and poor, learned and ignorant, clergy and laity. To all 
it was the same ; there was no doubt or question about it, all 
must hear, whether they wished or not. Opposition could 
not quell it, nor could power turn it aside. Immediately 
there sprang up sujpporters with the same spirit and the 
same message, and all England rang with the noise and 
aggressiveness of the new sect. 

What, then, were the distinctive doctrines which added 
so much to the confusion of the already distracted country ? 
It is important for our purpose to consider some of them, 
for the government of Pennsylvania was largely modified 
by their influences. 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

Primarily, Fox and his '^Children of Light,"* as the 
early Friends called themselves, placed the principle, to 
which they believed they owed all their personal illumina- 
tion, of the direct revelation of God to the individual soul. 
This was '^the light which lighteth every man," "the 
Christ within," ''the Seed of God," ^^the Holy Spirit," 
''the Universal and Saving Grace." They must wait and 
listen for this in mental stillness, with hushed and attentive 
minds. They must work, and preach, and believe accord- 
ing to Divine teaching. So there would be peace and order 
wherever there was free course in willing and obedient 
minds for this infallible and harmonizing spirit. 

All worship was communion with God, and all religious 
work was under Divine guidance, spontaneous and per- 
sonal. This excluded any formal ordinances, and when 
confronted with Scripture texts apparently enjoining them, 
the Friends replied that they were relics of Jewish customs, 
permitted for a time, but nowhere made perpetually in- 
cumbent. 

It was "opened" to George Fox "that being bred at 
Oxford and Cambridge was not enough to iit or qualify men 
to be ministers of Christ." They nevertheless used edu- 
cated men, and encouraged education. Thomas Ellwood 
accepted his post as secretary for John Milton so that he 
could have his master's aid in the study of Latin. " Nor 
was I rightly sensible of my loss therein," he says, "until 
I came among the Quakers. But then I both saw my loss 
and lamented it, and applied myself with utmost diligence, 
at all leisure times, to recover it ; so false I found that 
charge to be which in those times was cast as a reproach 
upon the Quakers that they despised and decried all human 
learning because they denied it to be essentially necessary 
to a gospel ministry." But inasmuch as Divine unction 
was necessary, and education only a subordinate aid, the 
illiterate preacher with a message was ever exalted above 

* The official title afterwards became "The Religious Society of 
Friends." 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND WILLIAM PENN. 33 

the man with merely human learning and eloquence. The 
homage was paid to the message, and the intellectual or 
social quality or sex of the instrument whom God had 
chosen to deliver it was of no consequence. A spiritual 
democracy, which easily became a social and political 
democracy, in which men and women were measured solely 
by the value and validity of their ^^ gifts,'' was thus estab- 
lished. 

All this, of course, was fundamentally opposed to the 
clerical ascendancy and the ritualism of the Anglican 
Church and to the predestinarian doctrines which were 
then largely held by the Presbyterian and allied bodies of 
the commonwealth. The Quaker called for simplicity and 
spirituality of worship, the breaking down of the distinc- 
tions which exalted the clergy above the laity, and absolute 
free will in the matter of individual salvation. It taught 
the worth of the man. Wherever and whatever he wa<s^ 
he had a holy visitant who would, if permitted, educate 
his conscience, convert his heart, convince ^his understan<J,r 
ing, and guide his life. V: ^''' ''^» 

Their doctrine of the inner light taught human equality,; 
and soon the sincerity of the gathering coxripany of its 
believers was put to the test. For with all the sturdy re- 
publicanism of the Cromwellians, it was in many respects 
an obsequious and class-respecting age. Men demanded, 
and were often accorded, the marks of respect they sup- 
posed due to their rank or station. The plural pronoun 
was to be used to men of certain classes, the singular was 
good enough for the lower. The wearing of the hat was a 
sign of station and distinction. Both Charles I. and the 
regicide judges wore theirs at the trial. But the Quaker 
recognized no distinctions. ^ ' Moreover, ' ' says Fox, ' ' when 
the Lord sent me forth into the world. He forbade me to 
put off my hat to any, high or low ; and I was required to 
say thee and thou to all men and women, without any 
respect to rich or poor, great or small." 

A testimony more vital in its consequences was that 
against war. ^^!N"ow the term of my commitment to the 

3 



34 INTRODUCTION. 

House of Correction being very near out/^ says Fox, ''and 
there being many new soldiers raised, the commissioners 
would have made me captain over them ; and the soldiers 
said they would have none but me. So the keeper of the 
House of Correction was commanded to bring me before the 
commissioners and soldiers in the market-place ; and there 
being offered that preferment as they called it, asking me 
if I would not take up arms for the Commonwealth against 
Charles Stuart ? I told them I knew from whence all wars 
did arise, even from the lust, according to James's doctrine, 
and that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that 
took away the occasion for all wars. But they coveted me 
to accept of their offer, and thought I did but compliment 
them. But I told them I was come into the covenant of 
peace which was before wars and strifes were. They said 
they offered it in love and kindness to me because of my 
virtue. But I told them if that was their love and kindness 
I trampled it under my feet.'' After which rather ungra- 
cious reply they threw him into the dungeon with thirty 
felons. His followers brought up many scriptural argu- 
ments based on the law of love why wars were unlawful for 
Christians, but the ^'covenant of peace," the teaching of 
God's indwelling spirit, was sufficient for George Fox. 

The effect of this teaching was wonderful. Quakerism 
made great inroads among Cromwell's Ironsides, and as in- 
variably as with the Christians of the third century they 
threw down their arms and said, '' I am a Christian, and 
therefore cannot fight." 

Uncompromising peace was a doctrine hard to maintain 
in those troubled times, and still harder when held by the 
men upon whom the responsibilities of government were 
thrown in Pennsylvania a few years later. 

In the matter of oaths they were equally radical. The 
Sermon on the Mount in their view forbade judicial as 
well as profane swearing, and inculcated simple, truthful 
statements, and on them they stood. 'No laws or penalties 
or arguments could shake them. The command was abso- 
lute, and they never yielded an iota from their position. 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND WILLIAM PENN. 35 

Their attitude to government was rather peculiar. They 
asserted the divine authority of the powers that were when- 
ever they did not interfere with the individual conscience. 
Thus when cast into jail for some trivial cause the jailors 
would leave the doors open sure to find, sometimes to their 
disappointment, every Quaker in j^lace the next morning ; 
and yet the laws requiring an oath or prohibiting religious 
worship were disobeyed as regularly as the opportunity 
occurred. There were no Quaker plots against govern- 
ment. One policeman could manage a whole Quaker meet- 
ing. Quiet but uncompromising disobedience to every 
enactment which touched their conscience, perfect obedi- 
ence to everything else, were the weapons they depended 
on to secure their rights. 

Their labors were not confined to England. The American 
Colonies were visited by many ministers. Holland and the 
Ehine provinces were invaded and many converts added. 
Quaker missionaries suffered in the dungeons of the Inqui- 
sition in Malta ; they pushed their way into the presence 
of the Pope, and a lonely woman had a ^' concern" to speak 
to the Sultan, which business she accomplished to apparent 
mutual satisfaction. Those who have only known the quiet, 
peace-loving Quakers of recent years, can hardly conceive 
the vigor and determination of their missionary labors, or 
the fierceness of their literary warfare against their opposers. 
There were said to be sixty thousand of them in England 
at the death of George Fox in 1690. 

We may now be able to see why it was that the seven- 
teenth century Quakers were so i^ersecuted. They would 
not pay tithes to support a religion which struck at their 
conscience. They would not take an oath of allegiance. 
They would not take off their hats before magistrate, judge, 
or priest, or even before king or protector. They would 
not obey any law interfering with the liberty of their wor- 
ship. They would not even give their persecutors the satis- 
faction of open resistance, and they could never be caught 
in any plots or designs against the government. With all 
this negative opposition, they were aggressively pushing 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

themselves and their views into every corner of the kingdom. 
In the streets of London, the dales of Yorkshire, the mines 
of Cornwall, among the armies of the commonwealth, the 
students of the universities, the divines of the various de- 
nominations, the Quaker preachers were making their con- 
verts. They talked very plainly to Oliver Cromwell and 
Charles II. Xo iniquity in high place or low did they fail 
to rebuke. They drew off congregations from their minis- 
ters and ministers from their congregations, and were al- 
together such a ubiquitous, interfering, troublesome people 
that even the moderate judges found it hard to resist the 
temptation to send them to jail. 

In addition to these causes of suffering, the various 
peculiarities of the Friends made them a prey to every 
informer and personal enemy. It was only necessary to 
get them once into court, on any pretext, when the hat, or 
the refusal to swear, would be sure to make any further 
fining or imprisonment quite regular and easy. 

So thousands of them were in jail (and horrible places 
the jails were in England in those days) through the com- 
monwealth, and hundreds died there. Other thousands 
were reduced to poverty, families were separated, and 
some of the most sincere and ijure-minded of Englishmen 
were made to endure more than was meted to the worst 
criminals. When Charles II. came to the throne there was 
a temporary improvement in their condition. He had 
promised toleration, and probably wished to secure it, 
principally on account of the Catholics, but Parliament 
would not permit, and the good-natured king, who needed 
money for his own pleasures and plans, could not afford to 
insist on any unpopular liberality. 

In the meantime an effective organization had been 
created. The practical mind of Fox, in the intervals of 
his preachings and imprisonments, perhaps aided by the 
leisure the latter afforded, had worked out a church ma- 
chinery quite unique in its various details and admirably 
fitting the doctrines it was intended to conserve. Of 
course it was democratic, and included women as well as 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND WILLIAM PENN. 37 

men. Every adult took part in business deliberations, 
whicli were supposed to be conducted under direct Divine 
guidance. There was no presiding officer, and no votes 
were taken, but, after a time of quiet discussion, or quiet- 
ness without discussion, an undoubted decision was reached, 
which was minuted by a clerk. 

The central body was the '^Yearly Meeting," composed, 
at first, of delegates, afterwards, of the full membership, 
convening in London. The decisions of this body were 
conclusive on all matters of general concern. The subordi- 
nate bodies were the Quarterly, Monthly, and Preparative 
Meetings. The Monthly Meeting was the real executive 
body of the district, so far as the interests of the individual 
member were concerned. It looked into his conduct, saw 
that his children were educated, certified to his standing if 
he removed, recommended him as having received minis- 
terial or other gifts, looked after him in poverty, and dis- 
owned him if he became hopelessly reprobate. The duties 
of civil government in a community of Quakers would be 
reduced to a minimum. 

Things were in this condition when the enterprise of 
William Penn seemed to open a door of escape from per- 
secution, and an opportunity to try an experiment in Quaker 
ideas, which might prove their utility and become an ex- 
ample for all nations. 

Sir William Penn, the father of the founder, was the 
Vice- Admiral of Cromwell's fleet, and, like many others, 
made his peace with Charles II. before the restoration. He 
was knighted, continued in a naval position, and received 
large honors and emoluments from his new master. He was 
able to loan the impecunious king some sixteen thousand 
pounds, the discharge of which debt was afterwards effected 
by the transfer of Pennsylvania to his son. He had large 
influence at court, and designed a brilliant career for his 
heir and namesake, who was handsome, manly in person, 
courtly in manners, and accomplished in mind. 

William Penn was born in 1644. He matriculated at 
Christ Church, Oxford, twenty years later. As an under- 



38 INTRODUCTION. 

graduate he seems to have had a leaning towards Puritan- 
ism, and with his fellow-students vigorously attacked en- 
forced attendance upon the high-church services. He also 
heard a Quaker preacher, Thomas Loe, and was somewhat 
influenced. He was expelled for his recusancy, much to 
the grief of his ambitious father, who sent him to Paris to 
divert his mind. This experiment seems to have been largely 
successful, for when he returned, Pepys says, "he was a 
modish person grown quite a fine gentleman.'' Prior to 
his return he studied for a while at the Protestant Theo- 
logical School at Saumur, where he acquired that knowledge 
of patristic literature so evident in his writings. 

He was admitted a student of law at Lincoln's Inn in 1665, 
saw service in the Dutch war, and later served with dis- 
tinction in the suppression of a mutiny in Ireland. He 
had, however, never lost sight of the Quakers, and when 
sent by his father to care for his estates in Ireland, he again 
heard Thomas Loe, and made the resolve, concerning which 
he never weakened, to give up his prospects, disappoint his 
father, and cast in his lot with the persecuted Quakers. 
He was almost immediately in prison, but his father pro- 
cured his release and recalled him to London. All the ob- 
jectionable peculiarities, the "thou" and the "thee" and 
the uncovered head, were in full possession, and the old 
admiral who dearly loved his son, and would have been 
willing to compromise the hat question by the reservation 
of the king, the Duke of York, and himself, drove him from 
the house. It was not in Quaker nature to compromise, 
nor to keep quiet, and the young man rushed into the po- 
lemical controversies of the times with the greatest ardor, 
and soon found himself in the Tower for publishing without 
a license. There he wrote "IN'o Cross, no Crown," the 
most celebrated of his works. Koted divines were sent to 
convert him, and he was told he must recant or remain a 
prisoner for life. "The Tower," he said, "is the worst 
argument in the world. My prison shall be my grave before 
I will budge a jot." His father, now reconciled to him, pro- 
cured his release, but about a year later he was arrested 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS AND WILLIAM PENN. 39 

with William Mead under the conventicle act for addressing 
a meeting in Grace Church Street. The jury brought in a 
verdict, '^ Guilty of speaking in Grace Church Street," but 
refused to add, as the Court desired, ' ' to an unlawful as- 
sembly." They were for days deprived of food, drink, and 
tobacco, and under the spur of Penn's appeals to conserve 
the rights of Englishmen in the jury-box, finally said, '^ Not 
guilty." They were fined and thrown into jail, as was also 
Penn, on the plea of not taking off his hat. 

This was in 1670. For ten years he spent his time in 
prison, in preaching tours through England and Germany, 
in writing various expositions of Quaker views, important 
among which for our purpose was an eloquent, learned, and 
liberal treatise on Universal Toleration, in interceding at 
court, where he always possessed great influence, for the 
release of his Quaker brethren throughout England, and in 
a vain attempt to secure the election of his friend, the re- 
publican Algernon Sidney, to Parliament. 

He added a touch of worldly wisdom, polish, eloquence, 
and courtly x^restige to the society with which he had allied 
himself, and, save George Fox, with whom he was in close 
symi)athy, no one was more conspicuous or more influential 
in shaping its future. He revised the rude English of Fox's 
Journal, preached at his funeral, and wrote a sympathetic 
and discriminating account of his character. The two men 
were well fitted to work together. The one zealous, deeply 
thoughtful, supremely wise and far-seeing, utterly fearless, 
and of tremendous j^ersonal power, but crude, uncouth, and 
uneducated ; the other filled with reverence for his leader, 
and with knowledge, executive power, wealth, and rank to 
throw into the cause. The two men wrought together to 
build up their society in England and to shape the Quaker 
commonwealth in Pennsylvania. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

¥¥ 

CHAPTEE I. 

1681-1682. 

Charter to William Penn — Name given to Province — Colonel William 
Markham and Lord Baltimore — Purchases from Indians — ^Terms to 
Settlers— Philadelphia— Religious Liberty— Fundamental Constitu- 
tions — Charter to the Colony — Laws agreed upon in England. 

The charter of Charles II. to William Penn was dated 
March 4, 1681. It was largely drawn up by Penn himself, 
who partly copied from a similar charter granting Mary- 
land to Lord Baltimore. The draught was revised by the 
Attorney- General and other crown advisers, and its final 
form was liberal and just to all parties. The power to grant 
was assumed to involve the power to modify at pleasure 
and the English government was not restrained in after 
years, when the charter provisions became in certain par- 
ticulars inconvenient, from annulling them. 

Penn was made absolute owner of the soil, to occupy, sell, 
or dispose of as he saw fit. The consideration for this 
princely domain, besides the sixteen thousand pounds of 
royal indebtedness extinguished, was ^ ' two beaver skins to 
be delivered at our said castle of Windsor on the first day 
of January of every year, and also the fifth part of all the 
gold and silver ore" found in the province. 

He could also frame the government subject to the consent 
of the majority of the colonists, and in an emergency, without 
them. Practically, all details, the kind of people he would 
sell to, the price to be asked, the amount and kind of political 
power he would retain for himself and grant to the people, 
were for the time in his own hands. 

41 



42 . HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The imperfect knowledge of the geography of the country 
and of the position of the parallels of latitude gave great 
difficulty in interpreting the grant. The boundaries were 
given as follows: ^'On the east by the Delaware river 
from twelve miles distant north from :N'ewcastle town unto 
the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, if the said 

river doth extend so far northward The said land 

to extend westward five degrees in longitude to be computed 
from the eastern bounds ; and the said lands to be bounded 
on the north by three and fortieth degree of northern lati- 
tude, and on the south by a circle drawn at twelve miles 
distance from Newcastle northward and westward unto the 
beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and 
then by a straight line westward to the limits of longitude 
above mentioned." 

The evident intention of the king was to give Penn a tract 
three degrees in latitude and five in longitude. But the 
circle about :N'ew Castle, which was then supposed to lie on 
the fortieth parallel, made indefinite trouble, and nearly a 
century elapsed before the difficulty was finally adjusted. 
Pennsylvania never got her three degrees of latitude ; indeed, 
she could not, without encroaching on land previously 
granted to Lord Baltimore. 

Penn desired control over the Delaware Eiver to its mouth. 
Hence he asked the Duke of York, afterwards James II., to 
give him the territory now constituting the State of Delaware. 
Sir William Penn on his death-bed had commended his son, 
the founder, to the care of the duke, and he readily assented. 
The three lower counties, as they were commonly called, 
became thus a part of Pennsylvania, and for about twenty 
years were embraced within its government. After this 
there was a separate legislature ; but the authority of the 
Penns prevailed over both colonies till the Revolution, and 
close political bands drew them together. 

Within this princely domain Penn was to have, besides 
the fee of the soil, the free use of all ports, bays, rivers, and 
waters, and the produce of all mines ; he could appoint 
judges and other officers 5 he could i)ardon crimes, except 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 43 

murder and treason ; he could incorporate cities and towns ; 
he could levy duties, reserving such to the king as an act 
of Parliament might designate ; he was captain-general, and 
could levy troops and make war against pirates and other 
enemies, but could not hold correspondence with any nation 
at war with England. 

It was decided (and the following two j)rovisions were 
probably added by the crown officers and contained the 
germs of much trouble to the colony) : (1) that all colonial 
laws should be transmitted to the Privy Council within five 
years after their enactment, and if not disapproved within 
six months after delivery should remain in force ; and (2) 
that the king could impose no tax without consent of the 
proprietor or assembly, unless hy an act of Parliament of 
G'^eat Britain. 

Finally, at the urgency of the Bishop of London, a clause 
was added, permitting a minister of the Church of England 
to perform his functions whenever twenty of the inhabitants 
desired it. 

The charter of Pennsylvania, being one of the latest 
framed, was devised to avoid some of the supposed evils of 
the preceding ones. The control of the English Parliament 
was more definitely recognized, and hence the disputes which 
had continually arisen with the colony of Massachusetts 
were avoided. The coinage of money, the control of navi- 
gation, and the right to prohibit Episcopal worshii3 had 
been assumed by the northern colonies and were now guarded 
against, while the necessity of a quinquennial reference to 
England, though sometimes evaded by the repassage of 
offending laws, was a limitation on provincial freedom which 
the proprietary government of Maryland did not know. 
The right of Parliament to tax the colony, though not ex- 
ercised till towards Eevolutionary times, was distinctly as- 
serted. On the whole, the imperial idea was broadly stated ; 
but under this idea almost perfect liberty of action was 
accorded the proprietor, and he in turn passed it on to the 
people. 

The Privy Council, however, left the name blank, to be 



44 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

filled by the king, and Penn writes in a private letter, — 
•^This day (Sth of 1st mo. — March), my country was con- 
firmed to me under the great seal of England, with large 
powers and privileges by the name of Pennsylvania ; a 
name the king would give it in honor of my father. I chose 
New Wales, being as this a pretty, hilly country, but Penn 
being Welsh for a /im(Z .... (we) called this Pennsylvania, 
which is the high or head woodlands ; for I proposed, when 
the secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called 'New 
Wales, Sylvaniay and they added Penn to it ; and though I 
much oi)posed it and went to the king to have it struck out 
and altered he said it was past and would take it upon him ; 
nor could twenty guineas move the under secretary to vary 
the name ; for I feared lest it should be looked on as vanity 
in me and not as respect in the king, as it truly was, to my 
father whom he often mentions with praise. ' ' 

The king having issued a proclamation requiring all per- 
sons in the province to yield obedience to the new governor 
and proprietor, William Penn addressed the Swedes and 
Dutch and the few Quakers that had drifted over from 
New Jersey : 

''My Friends, — I wish you all happiness here and here- 
after. These are to let you know that it hath pleased God in 
His providence to cast you within my lot and care. It is a 
business that though I never undertook it before, yet God 
hath given me an understanding of my duty, and an honest 
mind to do it uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at 
your change and the king's choice, for you are now fixed at 
the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune 
great ; you shall be governed by laws of your own making, 
and live a free and, if you will, a sober and industrious 
people. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his 
person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and 
has given me His grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober 
and free men can reasonably derive for the security and im- 
provement of their own happiness I shall heartily comply 
with, and in five months resolve, if it pleases God, to see 
you." 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 45 

To take possession of his territory, Colonel William 
Markham was made his deputy. He reached New York on 
the 21st of June, 1681, and obtained from the government 
there a legal surrender of Pennsylvania. Then he pro- 
ceeded to the province and called a council of nine inhabi- 
tants to provide for affairs of government ; two of these 
were Swedes and the others were recent English settlers. 

His next business was to settle his boundaries with Lord 
Baltimore. An attack of sickness prevented anything being 
done in the fall, besides, they had no instrument capable of 
determining latitude, and Markham desired to send to 
Colonel Lewis Morris, of Xew York, for ^'a sextile of six or 
seven foot radies." Suspicions that the fortieth parallel 
was north of 'New Castle were already existing, but nothing 
definite was determined till September, 1682, when the 
"sextile" being produced at Upland, Baltimore was de- 
lighted and Markham thunderstruck to ascertain that its 
latitude was only 39° 47' 5", as they determined it. 

Baltimore immediately claimed all the country to a line 
far above Upland. Markham could only point to the 
king's patent, which said that the province should start 
twelve miles north of 'New Castle. Baltimore said he cared 
nothing for this. His own charter antedated Penn's nearly 
fifty years, and settled the question ; besides, he asked tri- 
umphantly how they expected to run the twelve-mile circle 
around New Castle and strike the fortieth parallel. Mark- 
ham could only refuse to acknowledge anything, hold his 
ground, and refer the Marylanders to Penn and the king. 

Prior to the final interview with Baltimore, Markham had 
met a number of Indian " Sachamakers, " and as the agent 
of Penn bought the first x>iece of land. It included that 
part of what is now Bucks County lying between iN'esham- 
iny Creek and the Delaware Eiver. He gave the Indians 
a miscellaneous assortment of wampum, blankets, guns, 
ammunition, garments, combs, pii)es, tools, fish-hooks, to- 
bacco, rum, and beer, besides some Dutch money. The 
Indians were satisfied and never questioned the sale. 

Penn was now ready to offer terms to settlers. He issued 



46 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

a description of the province, pointing out its healthful 
climate and fertile soil, and the privileges he meant to offer 
colonists in the way of free institutions. Any one might 
buy five thousand acres for one hundred pounds, with a 
yearly quit-rent of one shilling for each hundred acres. 
Much land was, however, sold for less than this, and if Penn 
could secure earnest and serious families to emigrate, the 
means for purchase never seemed to be lacking. 

Penn's next step was to send over commissioners to select 
and lay out a town and treat with the Indians. He instructed 
them to sound the rivers and creeks emptying into the 
Delaware Eiver on the west, and especially to examine Up- 
land (Chester) to find a place where large ships could ride 
close to land, and which would be high and healthy, also 
one where a navigable stream came down from the country, 
and there lay out ten thousand acres as a great town. Every 
purchaser of five thousand acres of his country was to have 
one hundred acres in the town. He would have every house 
placed in the middle of a large plot ^^so there maybe 
grounds on either side for gardens or orchards or fields, that 
it may be a green country town which will never be burnt 
and always wholesome." 

They were advised to be ^'tender of offending the In- 
dians," and to buy their land at reasonable figures. His 
letter to the red men sent by the commissioners was fraternal 
and tactful, acknowledging the injustice of many whites, 
but telling them he was coming to live among them and 
would treat them fairly and kindly. 

The commissioners did not think that Upland fulfilled 
the conditions of a ^^ Capitol Citty" as well as a location 
about fifteen miles farther north. Here there was a high and 
wooded bank, the deep water of the Delaware ran close by 
it, and the river named Schuylkill, by the Dutch, easily 
navigable, made another water front ; there they laid out 
the city of Philadelphia, or Brotherly Love, ' ^ named before 
thou wast born," as Penn afterwards apostrophized her. 

Land in the country and lots in the city were now rapidly 
selling. The surveyor, Thomas Holme, was as busy as he 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 47 

could be. He found it impracticable to lay out ten thousand 
acres in the town as Penn had instructed. He made it 
twelve hundred and eighty, and so it remained till 1854. 
Philadelphia, as we know it to-day, is largely due to Thomas 
Holme and Penn's commissioners. Penn sent over to Eng- 
land a description to the '^Free Society of Traders"* in 
1683. 

The city, as the model shows, ' ' Consists of a large Front 
Street on each river and a High Street near the middle from 
river to river of one hundred feet broad, and a Broad Street 
in the middle of the city of the like breadth. In the center 
of the city is a square of ten acres ; at each angle to build 
houses for public affairs 5 there is also in each quarter of the 
city a square of eight acres, to be for the like uses as Moor- 
fields in London ; and eight streets besides the said High 
Street that run from river to river or from front to front ; 
and twenty streets besides the Broad Street and two Front 
Streets that run across the city from side to side, all these 
streets are fifty feet broad." 

The city was two miles long from the Delaware to the 
Schuylkill, and one mile broad from Vine Street to South 
Street (then Cedar). The ten-acre lot in the centre, intended 
for a '^state-house, market-house, school-house, and chief 
meeting-house for the Quakers," was in the centre of high 
woods. Dock Creek (now Dock Street) ended in a large 
pond near the river, and at its mouth was Blue Anchor 
Tavern. The houses were naturally first erected along the 
Delaware front, and building began in a lively manner 
before Penn's arrival. 

Penn's public record had been made while a member of 
a proscribed and persecuted sect. He had spent many years 
in prison. In common with his fellow- members he had been 
disfranchised and kept from participation in all public 
affairs. Naturally he believed in liberty, and his broad 

* This was an incorporated company, from which great things were 
expected in the way of developing the country. There was a capital 
stock of ten thousand pounds, but for some unknown reason it did not 
prosper. 



48 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

comprehension took a larger view than most of his con- 
temporaries. '' Liberty" meant to them a liberty for those 
only who believed as they did. So it was in Old Eng- 
land and in the main in ]N'ew England. So also it was in 
Virginia. Eoger Williams in Khode Island saw better^ and 
so did the Calverts, of Maryland^ whether from principle 
or policy. While in England, Penn had preached liberty 
in its broadest form. The radical republican, Algernon 
Sidney, was his nearest political friend. He had pledged 
himself in numerous writings to universal toleration of all 
religious opinions. He had asserted the most advanced 
views of civil liberty. But he felt he was ever kicking 
against the pricks. His beautiful ideals could have no place 
in a government of Stuarts where favored classes refused 
grants of liberty, and priests had every temptation to exalt 
their ecclesiastical exclusiveness. Institutions were fixed, 
and selfishness was entrenched. 

But here was an opportunity beyond the water. If he 
could find settlers worthy to put his theories in practice, he 
would give them as nearly as he could an ideal government. 
^^We lay a foundation for after-ages to understand their 
liberty as men and Christians, that they may not be brought 
in bondage but by their own consent ; for we put the power 
in the people," he wrote in 1676 when the West Jersey 
question was before him, and again in 1681 he eloquently 
and unselfishly says, ^^For matters of liberty and privilege 
I propose that which is extraordinary and to leave myself 
and successors no power of doing mischief, so that the will 
of one man may not hinder the good of the whole country." 

He was evidently hampered to some extent by the views, 
and perhaps the selfish interests, of settlers. He did not 
wish his colony to be a refuge of paupers or adventurers or 
criminals, but of sober, well-to-do people of character and 
standing. He knew the good or harm wrought by the repu- 
tation which Pennsylvania would secure at its start, and he 
was very solicitous to have a large number of men of the 
right sort take an initial interest in the enterprise. He was 
ready to consult and modify to suit them, and some of them 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 49 

were not as wise as he. His cousin, William Markham, the 
first deputy-governor, speaks about ten years later of Penn's 
associates who '^ unless pleased, and granted whatever they 
wanted, would not have settled his country. ' ' In the interest 
of democracy he advised with Sidney. '^I took my pen," 
he writes him ' ' and immediately altered the terms so as they 
correspond with thy objection and sense." He also con- 
sulted much with Benjamin Furly, a Friend of influence in 
Holland, on whom he depended to incite the emigration of 
his countrymen and the dwellers along the Ehine. 

The result is the much revised and tangled bundle of 
manuscripts still in existence leading up to his ^^ Frame of 
Government," or Constitution as we would call it, which he 
announced before his departure from England in 1682. 

Prior to this he had written out his ^^Fundamental Con- 
stitutions," twenty-four clauses embracing his general ideas 
of government. They probably represent, nearer than any 
subsequent document, his own conceptions of a true govern- 
ment, which he afterwards modified to suit the circum- 
stances. First and foremost, as in every effort of Penn's in 
this direction, was the right of every one to worship accord- 
ing to his conscience, and he pledged himself to secure it. 
He provides for a yearly assembly elected by small districts, 
and every law is afterwards to be submitted to a vote of the 
people, — the referendum as we now call it. The governor 
can veto within fourteen days. Primogeniture, imprison- 
ment for debt, except in flagrant cases, and capital punish- 
ment for felony are abolished. The sale of intoxicating 
liquors and all demoralizing sports are prohibited, the law 
of habeas corpus secured, and affirmations are substituted 
for oaths. 

The published frame, though in certain respects weakened 
as compared with this ideal, is one of the remarkable po- 
litical documents of the times. Its preamble expresses 
Penn's notions of government in general terms. From 
Scripture he derives the idea that government is a Divine 
ordinance, — ' ' a part of religion itself. " ^ ' They weakly err 
that think there is no other use of government than correc- 

4 



50 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

tion, which is the coarsest part of it ; daily experience tells 
ns that the care and regulation of many other affairs more 
soft and daily necessary make np the greatest part of 
government." As to the form the government shall assume 
it is a creature of time and circumstance. " Any govern- 
ment is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) 
where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws, 
and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion." 

But after all, the best frame will not manage itself. ^' Let 
men be good and the government cannot be bad. If it be ill 
they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be 
never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their 
turn. ' ' Hence virtue and wisdom, to be gained by the proper 
education of the youth, are worth more than any elaborate 
schemes. The great end of all government being 'Ho sup- 
port power in reverence with the people, and to secure the 
people from the abuse of power ; that they may be free by 
their just obedience, and the magistrates honorable for their 
just administration ; for liberty without obedience is con- 
fusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery." 

Provision was made for a council of seventy- two members 
to serve for three years, one-third retiring each year, and 
being ineligible for one year succeeding. In this council the 
governor should have three votes, but no veto. It should 
alone have power to originate bills. The governor and 
council together should constitute the executive power, and 
by division into committees should practically manage all 
the affairs of the province. 

The assembly for the first year was to consist of all the 
freemen of the province, after that of two hundred repre- 
sentatives elected annually. To this bodj^ all bills origi- 
nating in the council were to be referred. 

It will be seen how completely William Penn had been 
willing to abrogate his own powers in deference to popular 
government. His retention of only three votes out of two 
hundred and seventy-two, his provision for large houses 
representative of the whole population, with ample powers 
to change any laws they might find already in existence, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 51 

indicate the confidence in popular wisdom with which he 
started his experiment. 

It may be well to anticipate here the trend of the changes 
in the powers of the legislative body before the final colonial 
settlement of 1701. Democratic as the plan was, the restric- 
tion placed on the assembly in the matter of originating 
legislation was something that the people with their new- 
found power would not stand. The council was the central 
and dominant body in Penn's frame ; they reduced it first to 
a co-ordinate house and then took away all right of legisla- 
tion, confining this function to their own assembly. The gov- 
ernor was impotent by Penn's arrangement, and the right of 
veto was granted in 1696. The legislature was too large for 
the sparse population, and the assembly settled down into 
a working body of thirty-six members, and the council was 
reduced first to eighteen and then to about a dozen wise and 
responsible men who became an advisory board for the 
governor. 

Besides the frame Penn had prepared some general laws 
which, under the title of ^'Laws agreed upon in England," 
he proposed to submit to the first legislature assembled. 
They defined the word freeman, as mentioned in the frame, 
as any one who had taken up one hundred acres of land (or 
if a servant, fifty acres), and every other resident who paid 
any taxes, and that all such would be entitled to elect or be 
elected members of council or assembly. They provided 
for trial by jury, open courts, moderate fees, and even 
justice ; that all prisons should be also workhouses for 
vagrants, and should be free from fees ; that the registra- 
tion of births, marriages, deaths, and transfers of prop- 
erty should be attended to, and that all children of twelve 
years and upward should be taught useful trades. Then 
follow certain characteristic provisions. All reputable 
people ''that profess faith in Jesus Christ" shall be eligible 
to office. ''All persons living in this province who confess 
and acknowledge one almighty and eternal God to be the 
creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and that hold 
themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly 



52 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

in civil society, shall in no way be molested or prejudiced 
for their religious persuasion or practice in matters of faith 
and worship, nor shall they be compelled at any time to fre- 
quent or maintain any religious worship place or ministry 
whatever.'' 

^'According to the good example of the primitive Chris- 
tians and for the ease of creation every first day of the 
week, called the Lord's day, people shall abstain from their 
common daily labor, that they may the better dispose them- 
selves to worship God according to their consciences." 

Then follow directions to the .legislature to prohibit all 
immorality and crimes, and demoralizing amusements, and 
a x)rovision that these '* laws agreed upon in England" 
should only be changed by the consent of the governor and 
six-sevenths of the council and assembly. 

Tn the ''concessions" to colonists he exhibited that re- 
gard, which in his after life made him famous, for the rights 
of the Indians. All transactions with them were to be in 
open market, so that frauds might be detected ; injuries to 
Indians were to be punished as if committed on whites, and 
joint juries were to pass on disputed questions involving 
both races. To protect them from irresponsible traders he 
refused large offers from companies. '' I did refuse a great 
temptation last second day, which was six thousand pounds 
... to have wholly to itself the Indian trade from south to 
north between Susquehanna and Delaware rivers, paying me 
two and a half per cent, acknowledgement or rent, but as 
the Lord gave it to me over all and great opposition . . , 
I would not abuse his love, nor act unworthy of his provi- 
dence and so defile what came to me clean." 

We have now seen the place which Peun had reached in 
the development of his theories and practical notions of 
government when he was ready to set sail for his new pos- 
sessions. There is no doubt that his regard for his co- 
religionists, the Quakers, was uppermost in his mind. His 
heart went out to them as he saw them, honest, truthful men 
and women, in the vile English jails of the day, and by 
the thousand reduced to poverty for conscience' sake. He 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 53 

would make a commonwealth where they might not only- 
live in peace, but have their places in the duties and honors 
of governmental station. He exi^ected such a large emi- 
gration of them as would set their stamp upon the new 
colony and make it ever after an embodiment of their demo- 
cratic, peaceful principles. And he doubtless thought that 
these would so commend themselves to other settlers that 
the trend to Quakerism would be, as in the recent past, rapid 
and conclusive. 

But he was too large-minded to attempt to make it a 
Quaker colony and give them exclusive privileges. All 
that he hoped to secure for his own sect he freely granted to 
others. '' I went thither to lay the foundation of a free 
colony for all mankind that should go thither, more es- 
pecially those of my own profession ; not that I would lessen 
the civil liberties of others because of their persuasion, but 
screen and defend our own from any infringement on that 
account." 

An enthusiastic and consistent lover of civil and religious 
liberty, the possessor of a fine estate, with a frame of govern- 
ment far in advance of anything the world had yet seen, 
and towards which in certain respects we are still progress- 
ing, in the prime of life, with as yet ample means, a gra- 
cious and forceful personality, profoundly and sincerely 
religious, strong at court, and beloved by his people, such 
was William Penn as, on the 81st day of August, 1G82, he set 
sail from London to take charge of his new responsibilities, 
with high hopes and a reverent heart. 



CHAPTER 11. 

1682-1684. 

William Penn reaches Pennsylvania — First Assembly — Great Law — 
Growth of Colony — Indian Treaty — Indians and Rum — Witchcraft 
— Schools — Welsh Settlers — German Settlers — Penn's return to Eng- 
land. 

The ship '' Welcome/' with William Penn and about 
seventy emigrants, dropped anchor in front of New Castle 
on the 27th of October, 1682 -, thirty good English men and 
women having died of small-pox on the passage. Here he 
received the fealty of the people of the lower counties, and 
two days later he was in Upland, stopping probably at Robert 
Wade's house. After a little stay he proceeded up the 
Delaware and landed, tradition says, at the foot of Dock 
Creek, in front of the Blue Anchor Tavern. 

He found plenty to do, and he entered upon his labors 
with characteristic energy. He was everything to the new 
colony. Founder, legislator, minister ; intellectually and 
socially easily the chief man, a feudal lord over an immense 
domain ; in no American colony was there such an undis- 
puted leader. While he lemained, the force of his presence 
compelled respect and love. When absent, the virtue of 
his authority hardly sufficed to restrain faction and enforce 
peace. 

He visited New York and its governor as a mark of re- 
spect to his friend the Duke of York, and Baltimore in a 
vain attempt to straighten the tangled boundary-line. He 
preached in the semi- weekly meetings of the Quakers, and 
served his term as member of committees in their work of 
organization. He attended to the new city rapidly building 
on the banks of the Delaware. He decided numerous indi- 
vidual claims respecting land and settlers. In addition to the 
three counties in the lower peninsula (now Delaware) he laid 
64 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 55 

out three more in Pennsylvania, — Bucks, with boundaries 
nearly the same as at present ; Philadelphia, including be- 
sides the city the present county of Montgomery ; and Ches- 
ter, including the territory now embraced within the limits 
of Chester and Delaware counties. All of these stretched 
almost indefinitely westward. He was ready for a meeting 
of the assembly on December 6, when representatives from 
these six counties were collected to perfect the government. 

Not all the freemen assembled according to Penn's plan. 
Some were too busy clearing ground and building houses. 
About forty met, however, the names of all of whom 
we do not know, at Upland, by this time called Chester. 
These were adjudged to be proper representatives of the 
counties. By a majority of one Nicholas More was elected 
speaker. In a private letter Penn explains that lines were 
drawn on denominational questions, Quaker and non- 
Quaker. The great influx of Quakers which immediately 
followed gave them afterwards an overwhelming preponder- 
ance. The assembly formally annexed the lower counties, 
which was a great relief to them, as they apparently had no 
love for the government of Lord Baltimore ; it naturalized 
the Swedes and other land- owners on a declaration of alle- 
giance to the king of England and obedience to the govern- 
ment of Penn ; and then it took into consideration the 
*'Laws agreed upon in England," now submitted to them 
by the proprietor. The session lasted four days and was 
thoroughly harmonious. Penn says of it, '^The foreigners 
were naturalized, and all the laws passed that were agreed 
upon in England, and more fully worded. The assemblymen 
were there to their great satisfaction, and such an assembly 
for love, unity, and concord scarcely ever was known in and 
about outward things in these parts." 

The ''Great Law," as the modified code was called, was 
evidently Penn's work, and was probably prepared by him 
as an amplification of his English efforts. It was largely the 
basis of the government of colonial Pennsylvania and to 
it the province was indebted in a good measure for its rapid 
growth. 



56 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Beginning with the pledge of perfect religious liberty to 
all forms of believers to worship as they chose and to sup- 
port nothing in which they did not believe, it to some extent 
narrowed the privileges of electors and of&ce-holders to such 
as '^ profess and declare they believe in Jesus Christ to be 
the Son of God and Saviour of the world." Practically this 
did not exclude any one, as Jews and confessed Atheists prob- 
ably did not exist in the province. It is notable that Catho- 
lics were not excluded from office-holding, and that future 
limitations of the principles of religious liberty were not ac- 
cording to Penn's ideas, but were forced upon him by Eng- 
lish authority. 

The property qualification for franchise was continued, 
but as suffrage was extended to any one paying ^'Scot and 
lot to the government," the only ones excluded were in- 
dentured servants and vagrants. 

It was prohibited ^' to sell or exchange any rum or brandy 
or any strong liquors to any Indian within this province." 
The death penalty was narrowed to murder and treason, 
practically to the one crime of wilful murder ; the pro- 
hibitions of the law with minor penalties of fine and im- 
prisonment extended to swearing, stage-plays, bull bait- 
ings, cock fightings, lotteries, and "evil sports and games." 
Duelling was prohibited, and drunkenness was also fined, 
the fine increasing with the number of offences. 

The great law established religious liberty, extended the 
suffrage, reduced the death penalty to a minimum, secured 
the people against oppression, simplified all legal processes, 
and made an attempt to establish a perfectly moral state. 
When we compare this with the conditions then existing in 
England where there was only one form of worship legalized, 
and all others were ' ' dissenting' ' and liable to persecution, 
and were allowed but little part in government or in the 
benefit of charitable or educational institutions, where the 
death penalty covered scores of minor crimes, where the 
code was so complex and unequal that few could be sure of 
justice, and where great and undetermined powers were 
vested in the crown, which could only be checked by the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 57 

most vigorous efforts of a Parliament, itself not fairly repre- 
senting the people, we can see how blessed was the condition 
of the embryo state, and how accurately Penn's far-seeing 
eye had judged the development of the future. 

On the 10th of March writs were issued to the counties 
for a new legislature to meet at Philadelphia, twelve from 
each county, of which nine were to be for the assembly and 
three for the council. This legislature enlarged the great 
law in much detail, levied duties, and went into the matters 
of trade laws, weights, and adulterations ; licenses, houses 
of correction and detention, and bridges over the ' ' Neshami- 
nee, Schuylkill, and Christeen;" rewards for wolf scalps, 
and prohibition for three years to kill the young females of 
domestic animals ; and the multiplicity of arrangements 
made necessary by a young and growing colony. 

From two thousand to three thousand emigrants had 
come into the Delaware in 1682, in twenty-three vessels, a 
number of them in advance of Penn. The most of them 
landed at Chester and Philadelphia and sought the tracts 
of land for which they had previously arranged. While 
building their houses they dwelt in caves and rude huts 
supported against great rocks. They suffered somewhat 
from disease and hardship, but they were not in general 
poverty-stricken, and they had brought much property from 
England, — furniture, plate, building materials, tools, and 
provisions. Fish, deer, turkeys, ducks, and other wild fowl 
were abundantly supplied at low figures by the Indians, 
whose friendship was never abused, and was most welcome. 
They were serious men who knew how to get along with 
each other in peace, and settle differences with equity. 
Their religious organizations composed quarrels, fed the 
poor, educated the children, and reduced the labor of 
government. The assembly might, except in so far as it was 
necessary to secure property and provide for the general 
support of officials and public buildings, wait indefinitely 
for its criminal and civil law. Matters would not go far 
astray. 

A peculiar Quaker institution was one established in 



58 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

addition to the regular county courts, the ''Peace Makers." 
These men were to meet monthly, hear all cases of differ- 
ence, and endeavor to adjust them. They were not bound 
by strict forms of law, but like arbitrators of the present 
time could enter into special consideration of equities and 
arrange amicable settlements. Xo oaths were required, and 
inasmuch as the parties in these early times were nearly all 
Friends none probably were permitted. Instead, some such 
form of affirmation as is recorded in the court records of 
New Castle on February 22, 1683, was used,— 

•'The forme to be used in ye Eoome of ye oath for ye 
Jury as the same was delivered in Cort by ye Honobl Wil- 
liam Penn viz. 

''You solemnly promise in ye presence of God and this 
Cort that you will justly try & deliver in yor verdict in 
all cases depending, that shall be brought before you during 
this session of Court according to evidence, and ye laws of 
this government to ye best of yor understanding." 
N The story of the great treaty with the Indians which 
more than any other one act has made Penn famous is not 
as clear in history as would be desirable. Benjamin West 
has immortalized it on canvas, and Voltaire amidst much 
eulogy of Penn and Pennsylvania, has said of it that it was 
the only treaty not ratified by an oath and never broken. 
The most of the biographers of Penn have placed it in the 
fall of 1682 shortly after Penn's arrival, and have clothed 
the surrounding trees with the glory of autumnal foliage. 
When the "Welcome" reached Philadelphia the most of 
the leaves had fallen, and as we can account for Penn's 
actions by his own and others' private letters it does not seem 
probable that any formal treaty was made with the Indians 
before the summer of 1683. V 

On June 23, and again on June 25 and July 11, tracts 
of land were bought of the Indians. They extended from 
creek to creek along the Delaware, and the whole of them 
conveyed to Penn the Indian rights in the soil of southeastern 
Pennsylvania, embracing the most of the three counties of 
Bucks, Philadelphia, and Chester. The distance back into 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 59 

the country was expressed in some such indefinite way, as 
"to run two days journey with an horse up into the country 
as said river doth go." This of course was open to fraud, 
but under William Penn's liberal constructions the Indians 
were perfectly satisfied. One of these old deeds under his 
less conscientious successors, as we shall see, made much 
trouble. 

It was not the mere fact of purchase which pleased the 
Indians. The New England and New York settlers had 
bought much land of them, though some also was obtained 
without payment. The Swedes and Dutch had done the 
same on both sides of the Delaware Eiver. It was unques- 
tionably the politic as well as the honest thing to do. The 
purchase in Penn' s case was done, as it was not in some 
others, with perfect fairness. There was an open and well 
understood bargain, of which neither party ever repented. 
The Indians were not made foolish with drink or deceived 
by false scales, or mystified by compass bearings. The 
amount of the purchase material was frequently left to 
Penn. Thus on June 23, Tamanen (the Tammany of tra- 
dition from whom the famous New York club derives its 
name) sold a tract for "so much wampum, so many guns, 
shoes, stockings, looking-glasses, blankets, and other goods 
as the said William Penn shall please to give unto me." 
No liquor was ever given for land by Penn after he arrived 
in the country. 

Not only was land purchased at these treaties, but they 
were also used for the enactment of leagues of friendship 
between the whites and Indians. Penn writes, " I have 
had occasion to be in council with them upon terms for land 
and to adjust the terms of trade. . . . When the purchase 
was agreed great promises passed between us of kindness 
and good neighborhood, and that the Indians and English 
must live in love as long as the sun gave light." 

It seems probable, therefore, that the traditional treaty 
made under the elm-tree at Shackamaxon (now Kensington), 
which place is marked by a stone, was an actual fact ; and 
while it was of less consequence in the contemporary mind. 



60 HISTORY UF PENNSYLVANIA. 

on account of the abundance of such transactions, than it 
has since become, it is of importance as typifying the fair 
and wise dealing of Penn with the Indians. The important 
treaty was probably that of June 23, 1683. 

The Indians in subsequent transactions often referred to 
it. Thus in 1712 one of their chiefs in a speech said, — 

^'The proprietor, Governor Penn, at his first coming 
amongst them, made an agreement with them that they 
should always live as friends and brothers, and be as one 
body, one heart, one mind, and one eye and ear ; that what 
the one saw the other should see, and what the one heard 
the other should hear, and that there should be nothing but 
love and friendship between them and us forever." 

And again in 1725 a chief of the Iroquois said, — 

^' Governor Penn when he came into the province took all 
the Indians by the hand ; he embraced them as his friends 
and brethren and made a firm league of friendship with 
them ; he bound it as with a chain that was never to be 
broken ; he took none of their lands without paying for 
them." 

This fair treatment preserved friendship with the Indians 
for seventy-three years and enabled the Quakers to put into 
operation their peace principles. While the borders of the 
other colonies were more or less harassed by cruel Indian 
warfare, Pennsylvania, unarmed and undefended, was en- 
joying a quiet and lucrative Indian trade and was filling up 
with settlers at a rapid rate. Peace and liberty and fertile 
soil were the great arguments which brought in the English 
of the Quaker counties, the Germans of the central belt, 
and the Scotch-Irish of the frontiers, in unprecedented 
numbers. 

Another protection which Penn and his friends sought to 
throw around the natives was freedom from strong: drink. 
The Indian was helpless in its presence. The best of them 
would often come into treaties and other important trans- 
actions in a besotted condition. For it they would barter 
all their possessions. 

In 1679, before Penn's arrival, the Quaker meeting at 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 61 

Burlington had requested its members to sell no rum to 
the Indians. The request became general in the five years 
following throughout Pennsylvania, and was enforced by the 
judgment of the Yearly Meeting '' that it is not consistent 
with the honor of truth for any that make profession thereof 
to sell rum or other strong liquors to the Indians." In 1683 
the sale was i^rohibited by a law which was in time made 
exceedingly stringent. It was impossible, however, effec- 
tually to curb the zeal of traders. 

The better Indians, however, recognized the honesty of 
the effort. About 1687 one of them said, — 

^'The strong liquor was sold us by the Dutch and they 
are blind ; they had no eyes, they did not see that it was 
for our hurt. The next people that came among us were 
the Swedes who continued the sale of the strong liquors to 
us ; they were also blind. . . . Seven score of our people 
have been killed by reason of drinking it. . . . But now 
there is a people come to live among us that have eyes ; they 
see it to be for our hurt -, they are willing to deny them- 
selves the profit of it for our good. ... We must put it 
down by mutual consent ; the cork must be sealed up ; it 
must not leak day nor night, and we give you these four 
belts of wampum which we would have you lay up safe and 
keep by you to be witnesses of this agreement." 

Penn built this summer (1683) his Letitia house, named 
for his daughter, which stood on the street now bearing her 
name, but which has been moved to Fairmount Park. In 
this house he lived part of the time, and here were the ses- 
sions of his council held. This council was the important 
body of the province. It proposed all laws, heard appeals 
from the county courts, and was itself a court in serious 
cases. In February, 1684,* William Penn presiding, it tried 
a woman on the charge of witchcraft, the only trial of the 
sort in Pennsylvania. There were the usual charges against 

* The years are changed to conform to present custom. In those days, 
1683 would extend to what is now March 21, 1684. The Quaker de- 
cision to make March the first month still further complicated mat- 
ters ; so that continual care is needed with the old records. 



62 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

her of bewitching cows, and the testimony is given in full 
in the Colonial Eecords.* The trial was very free, every 
one who knew anything about it, or had heard anything 
about it, being permitted to testify. The jury of eight 
Friends brought in a verdict, '^Guilty of having the com- 
mon fame of a witch, but not guilty in manner and form 
as she stands indicted." Her friends entered a bond for 
her good behavior and the matter ended. The disgraceful 
^' Salem craze," which sent a number of so-called witches 
to the stake in Massachusetts, began in 1692. 

Another matter which Penn and his council were inter- 
ested in establishing was some system of education, and on 
December, 26, 1683, they ^^ sent for Enoch Flower, an in- 
habitant of said town, who for twenty years past hath been 
exercised in that care and employment in England to whom 
having communicated their minds he embraced it in the 
following terms : To learn to read English, four shillings by 
the quarter ; to learn to read and write, six shillings by the 
quarter ; to learn to read, write, and cast accounts, eight 
shillings by the quarter ; for boarding a scholar, that is to 
say, diet, washing, lodging, and schooling, ten pounds for 
one whole year." 

Other records soon after propose a series of text-books 
and a '^ school of arts and sciences." 

About fifty ships with emigrants came into the Delaware 
during 1683, and the young colony grew rapidly. The settlers 
had little of the hardship from climate or natives which the 
^ew Englanders and Virginians knew, but each family soon 
found its place and made a home. Besides the English two 
important streams of immigration began almost at the start, 
the Welsh and the Germans. 

The Welsh, like the English, were mostly Quakers, and 
perhaps even to a greater extent than the English were 
sufferers from severe persecution. They had a strong feeling 
for their native country and wished to reproduce its insti- 



* These are the proceedings of the council, and are published in many 
volumes. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 63 

tutions in the new world. They asked and received from 
Penn a large tract of land, commonly known as the Welsh 
tract, on the west side of the Schuylkill and extending on 
both sides of the present Pennsylvania Eailroad. Merion, 
Haverford, and Eadnor townships, all Welsh names, were 
the first settled, and the tide spread over into Goshen, 
Uwchlan, Gwynned, and the surrounding country. At first 
they expected to be a little government of their own, a 
state within a state, where the Welsh language, laws, and 
customs should prevail. They were much troubled that lots 
were sold within their tract or '^ Barony" to others, and 
were finally told that they must either buy it all themselves 
or the disposal of portions to non- Welshmen could not be 
prevented. They pathetically complained to Penn that all 
they wanted was to remain Welsh, and enjoy for themselves 
and their children the fellowship of their countrymen at 
home, and that the gradual influx of foreigners would de- 
stroy their national feeling. 

Their religious meetings were the sources of government, 
and in early times we find these ecclesiastical bodies attend- 
ing to matters like maintaining a ferry over the Schuylkill, 
and insisting on the necessity of line fences. 

Many of the prominent men of the early colony were 
Welshmen, and their descendants in all generations have 
been among the leading Pennsylvanians. The Welsh im- 
migration soon ceased, and the settlers at first reluctantly, 
but afterwards of their own will, became merged with and 
undistinguishable from the other elements of the popula- 
tion. 

The chief Welshman of early times was Thomas Lloyd. 
He was a graduate of Oxford University, a younger son of a 
family of means and education. At some sacrifice he had 
joined Friends, and with his wife and nine children sought 
freedom in the new colony. Penn soon made ample use of 
his education and talents, as also did his sect in their church 
work. 

The other stream of non- English immigration was from 
Germany. Fox and Penn had made a religious visit in 1677 



64 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

up and down the Ehine and had found there many sympa- 
thetic hearers. Some of these joined their society, but 
others, who had independently embraced doctrines very 
similar to theirs, retained their old connections. Through 
the influence of Benjamin Furly, who was an agent for 
Pennsylvania in Germany by Penn's appointment, they 
heard of the land devoted to religious freedom and to peace, 
and buying of Penn some fifteen thousand acres, part of 
which was located about seven miles north of the new capital 
of the colony, founded Germantown. The first settlers were 
Friends, but Mennonites and other allied sects soon followed 
them, and the great tide of German immigration, which has 
brought its millions, was thus started. The leader of the 
first little band was Francis Daniel Pastorius, the ' ' Penn- 
sylvania Pilgrim" of Whittier. He came in the same ship 
with Thom-as Lloyd, landing in August, 1683. The two men 
spent their time on the voyage in Latin conversation, and 
the composition of verses. Pastorius was a scholar of re- 
finement and some wealth, and among other marks of dis- 
tinction was a signer and probably originator of the first 
American petition for the abolition of slavery. This was 
in 1688. These first German settlers were by trade weavers, 
and almost immediately they began to raise flax and to weave 
linen. A paper mill was also established by them on a 
branch of the Wissahickon. 

Lord Baltimore became active in stirring up the boundary 
dispute, and Penn thought it necessary to return to London 
to thwart his efforts. His colony was now enjoying pros- 
perity and harmony. Houses for dwellings and the plain 
Quaker meeting-houses were being rapidly erected. "Our 
capital town is advanced to one hundred and fifty very 
tolerable houses for wooden ones, he wrote February 9, 1684. 
... I suppose we may be five hundred farmers strong." 
The rapid influx of settlers made a continual increase in 
the value of the most available lots, so that every one 
felt he was making money. In the twenty- one months 
of Penn's stay, about ninety ships had brought their emi- 
grants to the colony, conveying perhaps five thousand set- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 65 

tiers. The little discomforts of the first winter were easily 
overcome. 

These were the busiest and perhaps the happiest days 
of Penn's life. Trouble enough was in store for him before 
the ^'Holy Experiment," now going on so joyously, should 
weather the difficulties of the first three decades. 



CHAPTEE III. 

1684-1692. 

Thomas Lloyd — Inipeachment of More — Disputes — Cave Dwellers — 
John Black well — Alarms of War — Perm in Trouble — Penn to Thomas 
Lloyd — The Lower Counties — George Keith — Bradford. 

Penn sailed from the province in August, 1684, leaving 
Thomas Lloyd president of the council and the keeper of the 
great seal. As the council was the executive body of the 
state, and alone had power to initiate legislation, Lloyd be- 
came the practical head of the government, and this posi- 
tion he maintained by his inherent strength, whether in 
of&ce or out of office, till his death in 1694. The Quakers 
looked upon him as the chief man of their sect, and he was 
felt to be the trusted representative of the proprietor. 

He, however, failed to carry the weight of Penn himself, 
and almost immediately disputes arose respecting the rela- 
tive powers of council and assembly. Penn had done his 
work well. He had indoctrinated liberty and the absolute 
power of the people, and the members of the popular branch 
of the legislature began immediately to chafe over the re- 
strictions imposed upon them. They found in the fact that 
their assent was necessary to make laws, a convenient means 
of bringing their enemies to terms. They threatened to 
allow the colony to go without laws if they could not have 
their way. These differences were about trifling matters, 
and Penn and those closest to him thought the assemblymen 
unjustifiably insistent and foolishly exalted with a sense of 
their importance. It is probable there was truth in this 
charge. On the other hand they were in harmony with the 
instincts of all English legislatures of all times in struggling 
for complete liberty. The Long Parliament had grievous 
abuses to abate, and in the same spirit these Pennsylvanians 

66 



HISTORY OF PExNNSYLVANIA. 67 

almost immediately, when the masterful presence of Penn 
was withdrawn, found in the exaltation of the council a little 
something of tyranny left. They struck at it in a way 
which, considering the individual questions involved, was 
rather ridiculous, but which, continued for nearly a century, 
maintained in Pennsylvania the essential i)rinciples of 
democracy and honest government. One cannot doubt that 
had Penn been properly appealed to, he would, after his 
usual custom, have remedied the evils complained of. In- 
asmuch, however, as these people were not very careful to 
provide for the expenses of government, throwing them 
largely upon him, it is hardly to be wondered at that he re- 
garded them as more concerned with their liberties than 
with their duties, and was disgusted with their little ani- 
mosities. ^'For the love of God, me, and the poor coun 
try," he wrote, ''be not so governmentish, so noisy and open 
in your dissatisfaction." 

The assembly in 1685 drew up articles of impeachment 
against Nicholas More, who had previously been their 
speaker and was now a judge of the provincial court. He 
was probably arbitrary, but nothing very serious was proven 
against him, and the council was loath to hear the case. 
Before anything was done his death ended the matter. 

The temper of the times is shown in the following minute 
of the council. ' ' Then they (men with other business) were 
ordered to withdraw whilst ye council should debate ye 
matter, but immediately stepd in Abraham Man and John 
Blunston (Assemblymen). Abraham Man began thus : Wee 
are come in ye name of ye free people to know whether you 
have not forgot yourselves in not bringing Judg More to 
tryal. The secretary asked him for his petition. Abraham 
Man made answer that they did not look upon themselves 
oblged to come by way of petition considering whom they 
represent : after some sharp repremands from the council 
they withdrew." 

Here we haA^e the assemblymen, swelled with their im- 
portance as representatives of a free people, bursting un- 
announced into the presence of the more dignified council 



68 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and demanding that they do their duty. Nothing could 
better stand as tyi)ical of the times. 

Another source of disquiet arose from the conduct of the 
dwellers in the caves along the Delaware. When the set- 
tlers reached the country they would dig holes in the river 
bank and in front erect cabins of branches covered with 
bark. This would be their habitation and the place of 
storage of their goods till they had found their allotment 
and built their house. The most wealthy of the first settlers 
had these caves. Of course they were soon abandoned by 
their makers, and were then occupied by loose characters 
who in various ways had come into the colony. They be- 
came the homes of drunkards and a scandal. The council 
and the grand jury both took a hand in their suppression 
in 1685. Ultimately the caves were destroyed. 

These political and moral disquietudes were magnified by 
transportation to England. Penn's enemies eagerly seized 
upon them, and political events at home enabled them to be 
used to his great disadvantage. 

James II., late Duke of York, the friend of Admiral Penn 
and his son, came on the throne in 1684. William Penn 
hoped to use his influence with the catholic king to secure 
toleration for all dissenters. At first he succeeded, but the 
political necessities of the last member of the unprincii)led 
Stuart line used toleration simply as a piece in his game, and 
gave it away when it suited him. Penn, however, never 
ceased to have personal influence at court. As James's un- 
popularity increased and his enemies grew bolder Penn 
shared in the odium, and many plots were formed to injure 
him and his Pennsylvania interests. - 

It was natural, therefore, that he should desire peace and I 
prosperity and good reports from his colony. It seemed 
to him that his own friends were playing into the hands of 
his and their enemies by their petty dissensions. At first, 
early in 1688, he took the executive power from the whole 
council and vested it in a committee of five, — Thomas Lloyd, 
Pobert Turner, Arthur Cook, John Simcock, and John 
Eckley. Then he arrived at the conclusion that they 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 69 

needed a stronger hand over them than was accorded by the 
mild rule of Thomas Lloyd, who, moreover, earnestly re- 
quested to be released, and made the rather strange selection 
of Captain John Blackwell, an old parliamentary soldier, the 
son-in-law of General Lambert, and, as Penn describes him, 
' ' not a Friend, but a grave, sober, wise man. ' ' He writes 
to Lloyd to bespeak his aid, with the promise, 'Mf he do not 
please you he shall be set aside." 

Blackwell met his council for the first time in December, 
1688. He may have been a ''grave and sober" man, but 
the result of his administration of a little less than a year 
can hardly convince one that he was a ''wise" and certainly 
not a tactful one. Thomas Lloyd was still keeper of the 
great seal by Penn's appointment, and no bills could 
become laws without his official act. Whether properly or 
not it is difficult to determine, he refused either to honor 
the positive command of the governor to affix the seal or to 
give it into his custody when absent from the province. 
The controversy raged so fiercly, that Lloyd, though elected 
by the people, was refused admission to the council by 
the act of the governor, who adjourned the meeting when- 
ever he appeared. The same was done in the case of 
Samuel Richardson, also elected by the people, but who had 
been turbulent and disrespectful in the meetings, and had 
openly refused to own Blackwell as governor. Other 
members declined to attend to business till the excluded 
representatives were seated. The assembly met and, having 
no bills to act upon, adjourned without doing business. 
David Lloyd, a Welsh Quaker lawyer, for a long time refused 
an order of the governor to produce the records of the court 
of which hewasclerk without the judges' directions, acting, 
as he said, on the advice of Thomas Lloyd. The old gover- 
nor commanded and threatened, but the odds were against 
him, and he only plunged himself deeper and deeper into 
the mire. As a councilman said, there were two governors, 
one inside the council chamber and one (T. Lloyd) outside, 
each with limited powers. It is probable also that sectarian 
questions came in. The strenuous Quaker partisans were 



70 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

all on Lloyd's side. The representatives of the lower 
counties, mostly non-Quakers, generally befriended the 
governor. Matters came into inextricable confusion until 
Penn finally ended it by superseding Blackwell. The 
honest but misplaced soldier, with whom we cannot but 
sympathize, told the council, no doubt with perfect sincerity, 
' ' ' Tis a good day. I have given, and I do unfeignedly give 
God thanks for it (which are not vain words), for to say no 
worse I wiis very unequally yoked." 

As the choice of Penn had resulted so unfortunately, and 
as he found himself still unable to return to the province, 
he concluded to throw the responsibility ui)on the council. 
He made two offers : they might make the council to be 
deputy-governor and choose a president, or thej^ might 
nominate three or five persons and he would appoint one 
among them as bis deputy. Nothing could be more fair to 
the people than this alternative offer, for it must be remem- 
bered the council was now elected by them. The council 
chose the former plan and immediately Thomas Lloyd came 
in again as president. 

Penn's instructions given Blackwell or ''whom else it 
may concern" show his tender care that a good govern- 
ment should be had in the colony. After certain matters 
concerning the manner of passing laws, he advises : 

"Be careful that speedy as well as impartial justice be 
done ; virtue in all cherished and vice in all punished. 

' ' That feuds between persuasions or nations or counties 
be suppressed and extinguished. 

' ' That widows, orphans, and absent may be particularly 
regarded in their right. 

' ' That magistrates live peaceably and soberly, for I would 
not endure one loose or litigious person in authority. 

''Kule the meek meekly and those that will not be so 
ruled rale with authority." 

The first of many difficulties due to Quaker scruples 
about warfare occurred during BlackwelPs administration. 
On the first day of !N'ovember, 1689, he communicated to 
the council a letter from the English Secretary of State 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 71 

stating that war with the French was expected, and direct 
ing that all the colonies should prepare for it. The council 
was composed in part of Quakers, and immediately decided 
differences manifested themselves. The councilmen from 
the lower counties were not Friends, and had a wholesome 
fear of the French fleet. They were in favor of establishing a 
militia and advising the people to arm themselves. In this 
they were supported by the secretary, William Markham, 
who said he always kept his own arms prepared. John 
Simcock, a Quaker preacher, could see ^^no danger but 
from the bears and wolves. We are well and in peace and 
quiet. Let us keep ourselves so. ' ' Samuel Carpenter, then 
laying the foundation for that great business which made 
him the chief merchant of Philadelphia, said '^he was not 
opposed to any one who wanted to put himself in a posture 
of defence doing so, but he would not do it himself. The 
king of England had perfect knowledge of Quakers before 
Penn got his patent, and he supposed that as in the past, 
they would suffer rather than do anything, if the issue were 
forced upon them." 

Later the Quaker members practically took the position 
that they would have nothing to do with it. The deputy- 
governor had power to make such preparations as he pleased, 
and he might do it without any advice from them. As John 
Simcock said, ''We can neither offensively or defensively 
take arms. We would not be understood to tie other's 
hands ; they may do every one what they please. We do 
not take upon us to hinder any. I do not think the gover- 
nor uQcd call us together in this matter. We cannot at all 
question the power of the governor." And Samuel Car- 
penter added : " We can not vote one way or the other. 
We say nothing against it, regarding it as a matter of con- 
science to us. I had rather be ruined than violate my con- 
science." Before the governor had opportunity to do 
anything his recall came, and the French danger also dis- 
appeared. 

In the mean time trouble had been brewing for Penn in 
England. His friend and patron James II. terminated his 



72 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

inglorious reign in 1688, and tlie Prince of Orange came in 
by invitation of a large number of the nobility and gentry 
of England. The reign of William and Mary brought with 
it much for which Penn had contended, notably a certain 
amount of religious toleration. Dissenters were allowed 
the free exercise of their religion upon taking oath to sup- 
port the new government, and a special act allowed Friends 
to substitute an affirmation for an oath. There was not, 
however, perfect religious equality. Friends could not hold 
office nor sit on juries, and various troubles still existed for 
them in connection with tithes and other ecclesiastical 
matters. But actual cessation from prison-going was ac- 
counted a great privilege. To no man was this enlargement 
of the liberties of Englishmen due more than to William 
Penn. His writings had urged it consistently. The ex- 
ample of his Pennsylvania experiment had had its influence, 
and now having accomplished one of the objects of his 
return to England, to shield as much as might be his suffer- 
ing Friends by his influence at court, and the times not 
being ripe for the Maryland boundary settlement, he hoped 
to return to Pennsylvania. 

He rightly saw that his influence at court would be less 
under the new reign. He did not hesitate to avow his friend- 
ship towards his patron and father' s friend, the exiled king, 
while disclaiming any responsibility for his reprehensible 
acts. His Quaker nature had kept him from plots, and 
nothing of a treasonable or even doubtful nature could be 
justly laid to his charge either before or after the abdica- 
tion. The excited state of the public mind, however, de- 
manded that the conduct of the friends of the late king 
should be investigated. He was charged with being a 
Jacobite and even a Jesuit in disguise. 

On the 10th of December, 1688, he was called before the 
lords of the council, and questioned concerning his attitude 
to the new regime. He said, " He had done nothing but 
what he could answer before God and all the princes of 
the world ; that he loved his country and the Protestant 
religion above his life, and never acted against either ; that 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 73 

all lie ever aimed at in his public endeavors, was no other 
than what the prince honestly had declared for ; that 
King James was always his friend and his father' s friend 
and in gratitude he was the king's and did ever as much 
as in him lay, influence him to his true interest." He was 
required to give bail for his future appearance, but as 
nothing was brought against him when his case came up he 
was cleared in court. 

In 1690 James unfortunately wrote William Penn a letter 
which fell into the hands of the Government. In this it 
was plainly intimated that Penn's assistance in the resto- 
ration would be valuable. There followed an arrest and a 
hearing before King William in person. The answer was 
frank and clear. Penn again acknowledged his friendship 
and gratitude, disavowed any responsibility for the letter, 
or any intention to aid in the restoration, asserting that 
obedience to existing powers was one of the cardinal articles 
of his faith. The king apparently believed him and would 
have discharged him, but to please some of his council he 
was held under bail to appear at court. Again he was 
honorably discharged and resumed his preparations to go 
to America. 

The king in the summer of 1690 went to Ireland to subdue 
the rebellion under James, and Queen Mary, fearing that 
his absence might encourage the Jacobites of London to 
rise, ordered the arrest of eighteen noblemen and others 
supposed to be disaffected, and among them William Penn. 
Again he was tried, again discharged, and again began to 
prepare for his trip to Pennsylvania. He expected to take 
with him a colony of perhaps five hundred families. 

George Fox died on January 13, 1690. Penn preached 
to an immense concourse at his funeral, and only by acci- 
dent escaped another arrest. The officers came too late. 

He learned that one William Fuller, whom the Parlia- 
ment afterwards pronounced a ^' cheat," had again accused 
him of treasonable intentions in connection with the old 
king. He might probably have left for Pennsylvania, for 
the authorities seemed quite careless about effecting his 



74 lIISTOIiY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

arrest, but that might appear something like a confession 
of guilt. To subject himself in court to the chances of con- 
viction on the oath of a knave was an unpleasant prospect, 
besides, there seemed no end of these arrests and charges. 
He was pretty well satisfied that the king and those who 
knew him best were not suspicious of his actions. He there- 
fore sent off the boats to America, hired lodgings in London, 
and lived in nominal concealment. 

The authorities could not have been very anxious to find 
him. His friends knew where he was and frequentlj^ visited 
him. John Locke called to discuss state constitutions, and 
Dr. Tillotson, matters of theology. Epistles issued from 
his place of voluntary confinement, which lasted nearly 
three years, to his friends in England and America in great 
numbers. 

In the mean time the usual amount of friction had existed 
in the province. The authorities there were slow to pro- 
claim William and Mary without direct advice from VVilliam 
Penn ; nevertheless, being strong Protestants, they were 
anxious the advice should come. Apj^arently, however, 
finding that most of the other colonies had preceded them, 
they took upon themselves the liberty to act, and at the same 
time reacknowledged their allegiance to the proprietor. 
Under the benign leadership of President Lloyd, in whom 
the Pennsylvanians seemed to repose perfect confidence, and 
whose adherence to place at some sacrifice was evidently 
induced by considerations of public good, a temporary sub- 
stitute seemed to be found for the proprietor himself. 

The lower counties had come into the comi)act with Penn- 
sylvania with great eagerness in 1682, as an alternative to 
the rule of Maryland. Denominational interests were, how- 
ever, diverse. They did not take kindly to the Quaker as- 
cendency of the northern counties, and they saw a pros- 
pect of being soon placed in an inconspicuous minority. 
Lloyd objected to members sent by them to the council on 
account of profanity and other immorality. Finally, in 
May, 1690, in order to propitiate them, the council and 
assembly held their regular meetings at ^N^ew Castle. But 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



(i) 



the lower counties, or '*The Territories" as they were com- 
monly called, being still unhappy, Penn reluctantly con- 
sented to a division of his authority by making Lloyd his 
deputy for the province, and Markham for the territories. 
A rumored French war being held up as a bugbear, Mark- 
ham, who was in hearty sympathy with the non-Quakers in 
matters of military defence, found himself in more congenial 
society than among the Friends of the province. 

Another controversy which had its j)olitical bearings 
now arose within the society of Friends. George Keith had 
been a minister in good standing among them. He had 
travelled with Fox and Penn in acceptable labors, and had, 
like all his prominent coworkers, suffered greatly and with 
fortitude and patience. He was a scholar of some preten- 
sions, who had emigrated first to New Jersey, but who had 
in the summer of 1689 been brought over to teach the 
^'Public School" just established in Philadelphia. After 
about a year of work he began to make himself conspicuous 
by attacking the doctrines and practices of the Philadelphia 
Friends. He told them that they exalted the Holy Spirit 
at the expense of the Bible, and was offended when their 
discipline was not changed to suit his views. He charged 
them with inconsistency in applying the penal law by force, 
and when a captain with his crew stole a small vessel and 
committed robberies up and down the Delaware, and was 
finally arrested, " without gun, sword or spear," Keith in- 
veighed loudly against the unchristian conduct displayed 
in the arrest. He demanded that all true Quakers should 
resign their magistracies. Being a man of much eloquence, 
he drew to himself a large number of followers among the 
Friends. The few who were not sympathetic with Quaker 
rule looked with joy on these differences, and encouraged 
Keith. But the great body of Friends found their views 
expressed in a paper signed by Thomas Lloyd and twenty- 
seven other ministers, reciting Keith's irregularities and 
disclaiming membership with him. The Yearly Meeting of 
1692, that year held at Burlington, issued its ^' testimony" 
against him, and this was finally confirmed in May, 1691, by 



76 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the ecclesiastical court of last appeal, the Yearly Meeting of 
London. 

Other unpleasant questions had arisen. William Brad- 
ford had come into the province in 1689 as its first printer. 
The printing-press was then an adjunct of the government, 
and when Bradford printed a reply to the testimony against 
Keith attacking the character of the magistrates and coun- 
cillors of the province he was arrested on the charge of 
malicious libel. The trial which followed, in which the 
jury was permitted to decide whether the pamphlet was in 
itself seditious, as well as to Bradford's connection with it, 
is the basis of the freedom of the press as we enjoy it in 
America. The jury disagreed and the case never came up 
again. 

Prior to the trial Bradford refused to give bail, and was 
nominally placed in jail. He was, however, allowed to go 
to his home when it suited him, and desiring to appear as a 
martyr and address a letter from a '' prison cell" he was dis- 
concerted to find himself locked out of the jail and the 
sheriff absent, so that the paper was signed " in the entry or 
porch." The mildness of the ^' persecution," as Keith liked 
to call it, was very evident to all who knew the circum- 
stances. 

The followers of Keith set up separate meetings in Phila- 
delphia and some other places. But when their leader, re- 
pudiated by London Friends, appeared again among them 
as an ordained Episcopal minister, striving to bring them 
back to the fold which he had spent his life in opposing, 
many of them were willing to rejoin their old Friends. As 
a religious body they soon disappeared, some becoming 
Episcopalians and some Baptists. Their influence politi- 
cally for a decade or more was cast against Penn and his 
friends with not a little bitterness. 

The enemies of the proprietor were now in i^ower in 
London, and he himself in seclusion. They did not cease 
to press upon the government the existence of confusion 
in the province. As a matter of fact, nearly all of the 
people were quietly engaged in their labors, and only 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 77 

the rulers were differing. But the disaffection of the terri- 
tories, the Keithian controversy, and the trials which were 
widely heralded as departures from the principles of tolera- 
tion and beginnings of the persecution of all but Quakers, 
the failure to make any provision for the armed defence of 
the province, these all, magnified and distorted, were held 
up to king and council as indicating a condition of turbu- 
lence and anarchy which would make Pennsylvania an easy 
prey to the French. So in 1692 the governorship was taken 
away from Penn and given to Benjamin Fletcher, then also 
Governor of Kew York. 

Penn's trials were indeed severe. He was in close retire- 
ment to avoid arrest and imprisonment ; he was maligned 
and slandered by men who had lately been but too glad to use 
his influence with the crown ; by many he was held to be a 
Jesuit ; financially he was approaching ruin by his great 
expenditures for his province, which hitherto had neglected 
even to pay the quit-rents owing him, and which allowed 
him to bear many of the expenses of the state ; the prov- 
ince itself, the holy experiment to which he had given so 
much of thought and energy, was now removed from him ; 
his wife, too, died about this time. Save for an approving 
conscience and the symi)athy of his friends, there was little 
to cheer him. But he kept a brave heart and urged his co- 
adjutors across the sea to work on in the lines he had laid 
down. 



CHAPTER IV. 

1692-1701. 

Governor Fletcher — War Disputes — Penn Restored — Charter of 1796 — 
Markhain and Privateers — Penn's Second Visit — Charter of 1701 — 
Philadelphia Chartered — Character of Government — Separation of 
Lower Counties — Penn and the Fords — Penn in Prison — ^The Mary- 
land Boundary Line. 

Fletcher reached Philadelphia early in 1693, and soon 
made it manifest that he cared little for the charter and 
institutions of Penn. Lloyd gave up the government to 
him without much demur, for which Penn was at first dis- 
posed to blame him. The council made a formal request 
that in calling an assembly he would be governed by the 
old laws, but he decided to make radical changes on his 
own authority. He ignored the difference between province 
and territories, and summoned them all to send representa- 
tives to meet him in Philadelphia. He reduced the num- 
ber of legislators and changed the time of the election. 
While the most of the Quakers hitherto prominent refused 
to accept commissions from him as magistrates or members 
of his council, they complied with the new conditions and 
allowed themselves to be elected assemblymen. Six of the 
twenty assemblymen took oaths of allegiance, the others, 
by Fletcher's special grace, he said, were affirmed. 

The council was shorn of the exclusive power of origina 
ting bills, a power which it practically never regained. It 
was made up of churchmen and followers of Keith, and evi- 
dently was out of touch with the mass of the people, though 
Markham, who stood well with every one, was made lieu- 
tenant-governor in Governor Fletcher's absence. 

The first request the governor made of the assembly was 
for aid to assist New York in a troublesome war that prov- 
ince had on hand against the French of Canada and their 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 79 

Indian allies. He seems to have anticipated trouble in 
securing the appropriation from a Quaker assembly, and so 
he told them, '^If there be any among you that scruple 
the giving of money to support war there are a great many 
other charges in that government for the support thereof as 
officers' salaries, and other charges ; your money shall be 
converted to these uses and shall not be dipt in blood." 
Then he further argued that what he wanted was based on 
the same principles which induced them to place walls 
around their orchards, or locks on their doors, or mastiffs in 
their yards. The answer of the assembly was a request that 
their old laws be confirmed to them. Fletcher replied that 
his commission superseded every prior authority. ^^ These 
laws and that model of government is dissolved and at an 
end. The king's power and Mr. Penn's must not come in 
the scales together." Again he urged them to vote the 
money he wanted. 

They replied by a new request to confirm the old laws, 
which he declined, saying many of them were contrary to 
the laws of England, and instanced several, the reduction 
of penalties for serious offences, and the Quaker method of 
marriages. However, after a formal presentation of the laws 
to him and some sparring between them as to the correct- 
ness of the enrolment, and as to whether the great seal was 
a necessity or only an ornament, also whether such of the 
laws as were five years old had according to the charter been 
formally submitted to the Board of Trade of London, prob- 
ably convinced that they were in the main right, he yielded 
the point and confirmed the " Great Law" and its additions. 
The house then sent up a number of minor bills which it 
desired to be made into laws. The governor signed some 
and objected to others. He insisted that burglary should be 
made a capital offence, that officials should not be incapaci- 
tated for serving from drunkenness, ^^ drinking a cup per- 
haps too much." But the supply bill came in time, and the 
governor dissolved the assembly and went back to ^N^ew 
York. 

A year later the war question came to the front with a 



80 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

new assembly, of which David Lloyd was speaker. The 
governor asked them to levy a tax to ^' feed the hungry and 
clothe the naked ;" that is, to assist in buying the Five K'a- 
tions away from the French. The assembly offered to raise 
the money, and after giving two hundred pounds each to 
the former Deputy-Governors Lloyd and Markham for past 
services, suggested that the remainder of the levy should 
go to the Indians as proposed. To this the governor ob- 
jected, intimating that they had no right to determine the 
disposition of the money, but that after it was raised it be- 
longed to the queen, that is, himself and the council. In 
the midst of the confusion the house was adjourned. 

The administration of Fletcher, lasting nearly two years, 
was greatly dreaded by the friends of liberty. They, how- 
ever, lost nothing. The assembly firmly held its ground in 
all essential respects, and managed to secure the right to 
prorogue itself and to confirm itself in the practice of origi- 
nating bills. Fletcher had more finesse than Blackwell, 
and came out of the contest with some degree of personal 
credit. He knew when to yield. Perhaps he did not care 
much about Pennsylvania, and foresaw that his rule there 
would be brief. 

In the latter part of 1693, three English lords, friends of 
Penn, went to the king and represented his case ^' As not only 
hard but oppressive ; that there was nothing against him but 
what imposters or those that were fled or that had since their 
pardon, refused to verify (and asked William Penn pardon 
for saying what they did), alleged against him ; that they 
(the said lords) had long known William Penn, some of 
them thirty years, and had never known him to do an ill 
thing, but many good offices ; and that if it was not for 
being thought to go abroad in defiance of the government, 
he would have done it two years ago." 

The king replied that " William Penn was his old ac- 
quaintance as well as theirs ; that he might follow his busi- 
ness as freely as ever and that he had nothing to say to 
him.'' 

As to his resumption of government we have the minutes 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 81 

of the Board of Trade and Plantations to guide us. On 
July 13, 1694, there is a report from the attorney- and so- 
licitor-generals going over the circumstances of the original 
grant, and stating that ''the right of government doth 
belong to the petitioner and Mr Penn, attending. . . . Says 
that, if her majesty will be graciously pleased to restore him 
to his propriety according to the grants, he intends with all 
convenient speed to repair thither and take care of the 
government and provide for the safety and security thereof 
all that in him lies. And to that end he will carefully 
transmit to the council and assembly there all such orders 
as shall be given by her majesty in that behalf ; and he 
doubts not but that they will at all times dutifully comply 
with and yield obedience thereunto and to all such orders 
and directions as their majesties shall from time to time 
think fit to send for the supplying such quota of men or the 
defraying their part of such charges as their majesties shall 
think necessary for the safety and preservation of her 
majesty's dominions in that part of America." He also 
agreed to appoint the deputy -governor, who was now serving 
under Colonel Fletcher. 

The part of this promise which refers to Penn's willing- 
ness to ''transmit" orders for troops or money supplies to 
the council and asssembly was easily fulfilled. It was rather 
perilous, however, to intimate that these Quaker bodies 
would do anything in such a case. 

There was evidently great distrust of the Quakers. The 
same board had recently adopted a minute: "Their lord- 
ships taking notice of the great increase of Quakers in 
Pennsylvania and all the plantations in America and the 
little help they contribute to the defence of their majesty's 
dominions in those parts to the endangering the defection of 
some of these plantations to the crown, their lordships agree 
to represent the same to his majesty in council." 

While there is no reason to doubt that Penn shared the 
Quaker views on war, indeed while he had announced them 
most clearly and eftectively, he yet held to the duty of the 
vigorous enforcement of law, and was willing wherever a 



go HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

line could be drawn between war and police duty to support 
the civil authority of the state. His promise, therefore, 
was simply a pledge to the lords of the council that his 
colony was abundantly" loyal. 

So the long period of suspicion and trial was over and 
William Penn, restored to his government, immediately 
became a man of influence at court and in society. In 
August, 1694, he sent a commission to Markham, constitu- 
ting him deputy, for Thomas Lloyd was dead, and the ever- 
useful cousin seemed the most available choice. He was to 
be guided by the advice of two assistants, Samuel Carpenter 
and John Goodson. 

Markham had the usual difficulty with the assembly. 
Fletcher again asked aid to feed the Albany Indians, and 
the assembly was willing to grant it if coupled with certain 
concessions. Markham, who was anxious to make good 
Penn's promises, postponed the difficulty by dissolving them, 
but they met again the next year, 1696, more determined 
than ever. They now demanded a new constitution, and the 
lieutenant weakly or wisely yielded. For this they granted 
the supply. 

By this constitution which, as compared with Penn's pre- 
vious ^'Frames," was an extension of democracy, the coun- 
cil was to consist of two members from each of the six 
counties, elected biennially, and the assembly of four 
elected annually. The latter had now secured to it in un- 
questionable form the right to originate bills, to sit on its 
own adjournments, and to be indissoluble by the governor. 
Under the ^^ Markham Frame" the province prospered till 
the final colonial adjustment in 1701. Penn never for- 
mally sanctioned it, but never questioned it. The people 
had practically all they wanted, and settled down for a few 
years to real political quiet. The Keith controversy was 
subsiding, the territories ceased for a brief time to complain, 
no wars seriously disturbed the serenity, and Markham' s 
yielding disposition and thorough acquaintance with all the 
elements of the problem which confronted him made the 
machinery of government run easily. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 83 

Some internal troubles manifested themselves in the 
growing colony. The assembly reminded Markham in 1696 
that ' ' this province had not been at first populated under 
William Penn's government with transx)orted felons or 
criminals, but mostly the people called Quakers, men of 
truth and sobriet}^ having visible estates and credit in the 
world." Nevertheless, the felons and criminals came in, 
some being perhaps banished from other colonies. Some 
thought the non-resistant Quakers might be an easy prey, 
and were encouraged by the lightness of the penalties 
meted out for crime. Privateers also, greatly encouraged 
by the glory and wealth gained by the buccaneers of the 
West Indies, sought refuge in the Delaware. They attacked 
and robbed the town of Lewes and were the terror of the 
river inhabitants. The province was reported in England as 
secretly supporting them and as living on the wages of 
crime, and its enemies, of which there always seemed to be 
plenty, made the most of their opportunity. 

Penn was brought before the board of trade to explain 
the delinquencies of his colonists. Fletcher went to Eng- 
land to defend himself from the charge of profiting by the 
pirates in New York. Markham appears to have been also 
charged, though without proof, so far as is now known ; 
Penn offered to remove him, though he said he doubted his 
guilt. He admitted that Markham was not his first choice 
for deputy, ''but was put upon him" by Fletcher. He 
was finally ordered, in 1699, to depose Markham, which 
order he obeyed by sailing to Pennsylvania and himself 
assuming the government. 

He brought with him his new wife, Hannah Callowhill, 
and landed in Philadelphia just when the city was recover- 
ing from its first attack of yellow fever, a disease which for 
more than a century after made frequent ravages among 
the inhabitants. With him came James Logan, an Irishman, 
of Scotch parentage, as his secretary. Logan was a com- 
manding figure in all Pennsylvania affairs for half a century. 
He was successively secretary and agent of the Penn family, 
commissioner of property, chief justice of the province. 



S4 msTOKY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and for two years acting governor. During the most of the 
time lie was a member of the governor's council. He was 
a man of perfect integrity and courtly grace, a Friend, but 
a believer in defensive war, sometimes becoming heated in 
partisan controversy, but, especially in later life, greatly 
respected for his learning, character, and ability. 

Penn had come to America with all preparations made to 
stay. He immediately set to work to prepare, in munificent 
style, liis countrj^-place at Pennsbury, above Bristol, for a 
permanent residence. He soon called the assembly together 
and had them pass laws against piracy and illegal trade, to 
purge his government of evil report. Then the question 
came up, which of the various charters was in operation. 
Penn seemed inclined to think it best to go back to the 
conditions that existed before the time of Fletcher, but the 
assembly had had a taste of authority and liked it well, and 
the council, partly composed of the same members, and also 
elected by the people, sympathized with them. Penn gen- 
erously said to them on April 1, 1700, ^'Friends, if in the 
Constitution by Charter there be any thing that jars alter 
it ; if you want a law for this or that prepare it. I advise you 
not to trifle with government. I wish there were no need 
of any, but since crimes prevail government is made neces- 
saiy by man's degeneration. It's not an end but a means: 
he that thinks it an end aims at profit to make a trade 
on't. ... I desire to see mine no other than in the public 
prosperity."' The abundance of laws on all sorts of sub- 
jects passed by the house and signed by Penn indicate that 
they took him at his word. 

Penn had now the opportunity to fulfil the pledge made 
in 1G94 to transmit to council and assembly the commands 
of the king relative to military aid. His majesty wrote to 
iiini (IfMnaiidiiig £350 for the purpose of erecting forts on 
the New York frontier. He promptly called the assembly 
together and gave them the letter, and in a little speech 
apologized for the extra session. The house was evidently 
embai-rassed. They desired any help from their proprietary, 
who was also their minister and adviser, which he would 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 85 

give, and asked for a written copy of his speech. He gave 
it them, suggesting, at the same time, that for their pur- 
poses it was only the king's letter and practically declining 
any responsibility in the case. In time two reports came 
from the assembly. One from the Pennsylvania assembly- 
men si)oke of the heavy expenses of the infant colony, the 
arrears of quit-rent, the poor system of taxation and the 
neglect of neighboring colonies to do anything, and post- 
poned further consideration to a subsequent assembly. They 
desired the proprietary to explain their circumstances to 
the king and assure him of their willingness to aid, ''so far 
as our religious persuasions shall permit.'' The Delaware 
representatives excused themselves on account of their own 
defenceless state. Penn faithfully reminded the next as- 
sembly of the subject, but nothing was done. 

The all important question was that of the frame of gov- 
ernment and fundamental laws for the future. A move- 
ment having been started in England to forfeit all the pro- 
prietorships in America, it seemed to Penn, though much 
against his wishes, necessary for him to return. He therefore 
suggested to the assembly that it was for his and the country's 
interest to have these matters permanently adjusted, and 
asked them to make to him such recommendations as occurred 
to them. They sent in reply twenty-one demands relating to 
land and other property, several of them touching Penn's 
own private estate, which they asked to have confirmed to 
them. He felt some disdain that they seemed to care so 
little about what were to him the more vital questions of 
civil and religious liberty, and told them so. Upon which 
one of them replied they had enough privileges for 
Englishmen. In the comprehension of the principles 
underlying free government Penn was in advance of the 
most enlightened of his associates, and had almost to 
force on them the liberties which made America what 
it is. He gave them almost all they asked for and a new 
charter. 

This brief constitution stood the test of use for seventy- 
five years, and was the basis of the laws and institutions 



8G HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and development of colonial Pennsylvania, becoming finally 
an almost revered instrument. 

The first clause, as in all Penn's charters, related to 
religious liberty. On this subject Penn was an enthusiast. 
He had placed it in the forefront of his fundamental con- 
stitutions, making practically no restriction on ofi&ce-liold- 
ing. Fletcher required all office-holders to subscribe to the 
English Toleration Act of 1688, broad for England, but 
behind Penn's conception of ideal liberty. Markham con- 
tinued the test, and Penn, just out of confinement, felt 
himself hardly strong enough to resist. Now, however, 
when he was just leaving the country he hoped to place the 
principle where it would be out of reach of any reactionist, 
and he wrote, '' I do hereby grant and declare that no person 
or jiersons inhabiting in this j)rovince or territories who 
shall confess or acknowledge one almighty God, the creator, 
upholder and ruler of the world, and profess him or 
themselves obliged to live quietly under the civil govern- 
ment, shall be in any case molested or prejudiced in his or 
their person or estate because of his or their conscientious 
persuasion or practice, nor be compelled to frequent' or 
maintain any religious worshij), place or ministry contrary 
to his or their mind or to do or suffer any act or thing con- 
trary to their religious persuasion. And that all persons 
who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ the Saviour of the 
world shall be capable (notwithstanding their other per- 
suasions and practices in point of conscience and religion) 
to serve this government in any capacity, both legislatively 
and executively, he or they solemnly promising when law- 
fully required allegiance to the King as Sovereign and fidelity 
to the Proprietor and Governor,'' etc. 

This would allow all religions to exist on terms of per- 
fect equality, and all Christians to hold office. The English 
Toleration Act excluded Catholics, and scarcely was Penn 
back in England, when, in spite of his charter, which em- 
jjowered him to make such a pledge, an order of the crown 
required all colonies to enforce this act. Penn could only 
submit, but was indignant that all the Pennsylvania officials 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 87 

subscribed to the new test without demur. ' ' Why should 
you obey V ' he asked. But the response was not satis- 
factory. Logan wrote, '' Be pleased not to set such a value 
as thou dost upon the Charter (of 1701), for most are of 
opinion that it is not worth so many pence, and if mine 
were asked I would rate it still lower." The assembly in 
1705 practically re-enacted the restricted test, and so it 
stood, in spite of the charter, excluding Catholics, Jews, 
and unbelievers from all offices, till the Revolution. 

The second clause provided for the election of an assembly 
of four (or more) from each county yearly ^ ' upon the first 
day of October forever." They had i)ower to decide the 
qualifications of their own members, elect their own speaker, 
adjourn, appoint committees, ''and all other powers and 
privileges of an assembly according to the rights of the 
freeborn subjects of England." This made an absolutely 
independent legislature, with full powers. It will be ob- 
served that the council, which at first could alone originate 
legislation, and which afterwards became a co-ordinate 
body, is not given any legislative power at all. What its 
function was will be noted further on. 

The third clause provides that for the offices of sheriff, 
coroner, and county clerk, two or three candidates shall be 
elected by the i^eople, among whom the governor shall 
choose. 

The fourth clause relates to the form of the laws and their 
proper record. 

The fifth secures the rights of criminals. 

The sixth deprives the council of the right to hear 
questions of dispute about property, except on appeal from 
the CO mis of justice. 

The seventh requires that all tavern-keepers shall be 
recommended by a county judge before appointment. 

The eighth protects the property of suicides, forbids 
any law contravening this charter, and pledges the pro- 
prietor and his heirs to observe ' ' inviolably forever' ' the 
first clause relating to liberty of conscience. 

The ninth, and last, solemnly declared that himself, heirs, 



88 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and assigns should never violate this charter, and if done 
it should be of no effect. 

These were the provisions which Penn, after twenty 
years' experience in constitution- making and practical gov- 
ernment, decided to be the few necessary foundation-prin- 
ciples of administration. How happily they were adapted 
to the situation of Pennsylvania the prosperity of the fol- 
lowing three-quarters of a century testified. 

Philadelphia also received its charter, and Edward Ship- 
pen, a Friend of wealth and education, driven out of Boston 
by its intolerance, became the first mayor under it. Quite 
recently an older charter, dated 1691, has been found. 
This was apparently operative for a brief time only, and 
Humphrey Morrey was mayor. It, perhaps, expired when 
Fletcher came. 

In this connection it may be well briefly to recite the 
form of government into which the struggles of the first 
score of years had led the colonists. 

The king, of course, was supreme ; but by the charter 
William Penn was granted large powers as governor, as 
well as proprietor. When in the country, Penn or his heir 
exercised the duties of the governorship, one of which was 
to place an irrevocable veto on all bills passed by the as- 
sembly, of which he disapproved. When abroad, he and 
his sons deputized some one to do it for them, giving him 
general instructions under which he vetoed or approved 
bills according to his judgment. The council, which now 
ceased to be elective, was selected by the governor or deputy. 
Shorn of all legislative functions it became an advisory 
board to the governor, under some circumstances a court of 
last resort on appeals from the county judges, and also pos- 
sessed executive duties. In the main, it contained the 
strongest and most influential men of the colony, and was a 
dignified and important body. When at its best it acted as 
a composer of the differences between governor and as- 
sembly. The assembly was truly the popular house, with full 
powers of legislation. While the governor had a veto, the 
house had so many resources to force his assent that it seldom 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 89 

failed to gain what it wanted. Elected yearly by the people 
by a suffrage which extended to nearly every one but ser- 
vants and vagrants, but which many did not exercise, the 
assembly reflected the popular will. It could not be pro- 
rogued or dissolved by the governor, and did not need his 
call to bring it into existence. The money question was in 
its hands, and this made it the real ruler of the colony. 
The Quakers constituted a large majority, and frequently 
filled every seat. 

The judges were not elective but held their appointments 
from the governor, while the other county officers were also 
chosen by the governor from two or three elected by the 
people. There was no militia, except voluntary companies ; 
no forts or guns, but little martial spirit, and, so long as the 
Indians were well treated, no occasion to exercise it. The 
colony was a well-governed, freedom-loving, conservative, 
peaceful democracy. 

Almost the last act of the proprietary was to consent to 
the separation of the province and territory, though both 
remained under his government. The union at this time 
was not popular with either. Interests were diverse, and 
the southern counties were greatly jealous of the rapid 
growth of their northern neighbors. Penn finally told 
them, though against his will, that they might go if they 
decidedly preferred it, • ' but it must be upon amicable terms 
and a good understanding. ' ' This they took advantage of 
a year later, and Delaware and Pennsylvania became finally 
separate provinces ; though even as late as the Eevolution 
there was more than the usual intercourse between them, 
and their prominent men held office in both. 

But Penn judged that his province needed him more in 
London than in Pennsylvania, and late in 1701 he sadly bade 
farewell to Pennsylvania, as he hoped, for a short time only, 
but as it proved, forever. 

In the two years of his stay he had retrieved the reputa- 
tion of the colony for orderly conduct, composed, at least 
temporarily, its factions, arranged an amicable separation 
of the upper and lower counties, incorporated its capital 



90 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

city, and given it a dignified and reputable charter. He 
had visited most of the Quaker meetings and preached in 
them ; had entertained both his white and red friends most 
hospitably at Pennsbury ; had confirmed the peace with the 
Indians and secured titles from them for more land ; had 
attended to innumerable details about sales of land, build- 
ing of roads, bridges, jails, and other public edifices ; had 
rechartered his public school ; and had infused into the 
life of the colony something of his gracious, liberal, broad- 
minded, and sincerely religious spirit. His declining years 
would have been happier and the province would have been 
spared some petty, but to the participants, serious, difficul- 
ties could he have remained within it. 

In order to understand fairly the relation of Penn to his 
province, and his future actions, it is necessary to consider 
briefly his private business affairs. He had inherited a large 
estate, consisting mainly of property in Ireland, but on ac- 
count of wars the income from this source became very 
much reduced. Pennsylvania was immensely expensive. 
He testified before the Board of Trade on January 18, 1711, 
that his first expedition cost him £10,000 5 the land pur- 
chased from the Indians cost him £3000 to £4000 ; his 
second visit cost him £5000, and that altogether he was out 
of pocket about £50, 000. This afterwards proved to be too 
small an estimate. He had to pay the salaries of deputy- 
governor, attorney-general, and chief justice, and the ex- 
penses of defending his rights at court were not slight. A 
dishonest steward cheated him out of thousands of pounds. 
He could not collect his quit-rents. Many of the people con- 
sidered them a sort of feudal tax which they ought not to 
paj^ Others, while having plenty of food and other neces- 
saries of life, had no money and could not pay. In a little 
time the machinery of the courts— and in the case of the 
Quakers, the meetings — and the increasing wealth of the 
country brought in a handsome revenue from this source, 
but in the first quarter- century of the j^rovince Penn was 
grievously disappointed. ''I am a crucified man," he 
writes, about 1705, ^' between injustice and ingratitude there, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 91 

and extortion and oppression here." Up to about 1710 the 
province, under the leadership of David Lloyd, may fairly 
be accused of ingratitude and selfishness ; afterwards the 
people awoke to the true situation. Penn's troubles arose 
largely from a careless, confiding disposition in money 
matters. In 1669 he made one Philip Ford his agent in 
managing his Irish estates. He appears to have attended 
to this faithfully at a small salary till Penn became so 
deeply interested in Pennsylvania affairs that he left the 
entire management to Ford. When about starting to his 
colony in 1682, Ford presented to him a bill for about £2850, 
which he said he had incurred in his stewardship. A few 
days later Ford asked him to sign a deed covering some 
300,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania as a security, and at 
the same time a bond for £6000 to pay the £3000 mentioned 
in the deed. All of these Penn carelessly signed. The 
fraud was so easily accomplished. Ford concluded to try 
again. The account grew at a marvellous rate. A large 
commission for receipts, compound interest every six 
months at the rate of eight per cent., salary, and other ex- 
penses had brought up Penn' s indebtedness, by the time of 
his return in 1684, in excess of all receipts, to about £4300, 
and Ford, with his wife, w^ho was really the greater rascal of 
the two, demanded another three hundred thousand acre 
security. This included Pennsbury and several of Penn's 
reserved manors. The account still grew, and the demands 
of the Fords became more insatiate. In 1689, the proprietor 
being in disfavor at court. Ford prevailed upon him to 
convey to him the entire province and territories in lieu 
of the payment of a claim of about £7000. VYhen Penn 
came out of his solitude in 1694 he earnestly desired to 
go to his province, but this claim was held over him as a 
club till he was bled all that he would bear. The matter 
went so far that Penn in 1697 conveyed to Ford the whole 
of his American property with the royal charter, and 
leased it of him so as to carry out the business of the sale 
of land and the rece]3tion of quit-rents. Of course, in order 
not to discourage immigration, the whole matter was kept 



92 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

secret. Just as he was sailing, in 1699, Ford threatened to 
stop the voyage unless he would sign a i:)aper releasing Ford 
from any obligation on account of errors in the previous 
accounts. Penn was in a dilemma and consented. 

After his return he laid the case before his meeting, the 
Fords being themselves Quakers, and asked a settlement by 
arbitrators. This Mrs. Ford, her husband being dead, re- 
fused, and the meeting disowned her and her son, who was 
a party. The matter came into the courts, but no settlement 
was for a long time effected. The legal decisions were gen- 
erally in favor of the Fords, but the friends of Penn, who 
were now thoroughly aroused, fought the case #n the 
grounds of the flagrant frauds in the accounts. Isaac 
Norris came from Pennsylvania to aid. It was found that 
the Fords had received of Penn's money one thousand 
pounds more than they had paid out, and yet had a claim 
against him of about fourteen thousand pounds. They 
offered to pay what any disinterested men might award, 
but advised Penn not to meet Ford's claim. He therefore, 
in 1707, went to the debtors' prison, on Fleet Street. After 
remaining there about nine months the Fords were forced 
to a compromise, and agreed to accept seven thousand six 
hundred pounds. Some of Penn's friends raised the money, 
securing themselves by the future receipts from the prov- 
ince, and Penn shook off his shackles. 

Another perennial subject of trouble was the dispute 
with the Baltimores concerning their boundary line. We 
have seen that Penn's title to the three lower counties, the 
present state of Delaware, came from the Duke of York. 
After he became James II. he had the deed confirmed, and 
this would have settled this part of the difficulty, but 
in the hurry of his exit in 1688, he neglected to have the 
great seal attached. By virtue of his charter of 1632 
Baltimore claimed the whole peninsula between the Chesa- 
peake and Delaware Bays. The conveyance, however, con- 
tained, in describing the land granted, the words ''hitherto 
uncultivated," and it was claimed that the prior settlements 
of the Swedes and Dutch would invalidate the Maryland 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 93 

title to the eastern portion of the peninsula. The matter 
was brought before the Board of Trade in London in 1685, 
and the decision was that the central point of the line 
running east and west between the two bays at the latitude 
of Cape Henlopen * be found, and from this point a line be 
run northwardly. East of this line the property was to 
belong to his Majesty (which would make the deed to 
William Penn legal), and west to Lord Baltimore. Balti- 
more tried in various ways for a number of years to reverse 
this decision, but the Penn influence was successful in 
maintaining it, and it determines the boundary of the State 
of Delaware to-day. 

But the more difficult question of the line between Penn- 
sylvania and Maryland still remained unsettled. The Balti- 
mores claimed to the fortieth parallel, embracing Phila- 
delphia. The Penns' demands went southward to the 
thirty- ninth parallel, embracing Baltimore. In the mean 
time each was practically exercising jurisdiction to about 
the latitude of New Castle, where the crown evidently in- 
tended William Penn's possessions to begin. Warnings 
were given to the settlers in the disputed territory to look 
for their titles to each of the contesting proprietors. The 
Maryland government colonized by force certain lands along 
the division line, and ejected the Pennsylvania colonists. 
Many conferences were held, and much money spent in 
London on law-suits. Finally, in May, 1732, an agreement 
was reached as follows : The line up the centre of the penin- 
sula was to be continued in a northerly direction till it 
touched a circle drawn with a radius of twelve miles around 
Xew Castle as a centre, and from thence due north to a 
parallel of latitude fifteen miles south of the southernmost 
point of Philadelphia. From this point a line was to be 
run due west to the limits of Penn- s grant. 

But, while this settlement seemed satisfactory on paper, 
the contest continued. Where was to be the centre in Kew 
Castle ? Was the radius to be measured on a level or up 

* Probably not the present Cape Henlopen. 



94 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and down the hills ? The Marylanders even claimed that 
" the circle of twelve miles " mentioned in the terms meant 
a circumference of this length. Much difficulty was met 
in finding the centre of the east and west line across the 
peninsula. Numerous other objections were raised, requir- 
ing a new London decision, in 1750, to remove. It was not 
till 1767 that two expert surveyors, Charles Mason and 
Jeremiah Dixon, located the northern boundary of Mary- 
land at 39° 44', and set up mile-stones along it. 



CHAPTER V. 

1701-1712. 

Condition of Province — Andrew Hamilton — James Logan — David 
Lloyd— Colonel Quarry — Differences between Council and Assem- 
bly—Attack of Lloyd on Pen n— Governor Evans— His Mistakes — 
Governor Gookin— War Supplies— Keaction towards Penn— Pro- 
jected Sale of Province to Crown — Penn's Letter to His Colonists. 

Notwithstanding the various political contentions, the 
colony during Penn's visit was prosperous. A Swedish 
clergyman writes : ' ^ The country is delightful and over- 
flows with every blessing, so that the people live well with- 
out being compelled to too much or too severe labor. The 
taxes are very light. The farmers after their work is over 
live as they do in Sweden, but are clothed as the respectable 
inhabitants of the towns." 

The population was still mainly English and Welsh. 
The great streams of German and Protestant Irish immigra- 
tion had not yet set in, though their advance-guards had 
come. The Swedes were rapidly losing their nationality, 
though they still maintained their Lutheran worship. 

Eeligiously, the Quakers were by far the most numerous. 
In 1702 Logan writes that the population of the city was 
about equal to that of the country, and one-third of the for- 
mer and two-thirds of the latter were Quakers. This is 
probably an underestimate of the Quaker population of the 
country. The Church of England members had so increased, 
mainly in Philadelphia, that they had formed an organiza- 
tion, and in 1697 built a church, the predecessor of Christ 
Church. There were three Quaker meeting-houses in Phila- 
delphia, and a large number in the country. The old 
Swedes Church, still standing at Wicaco, was begun in 1698. 

Trade was good ; yearly a large number of vessels carried 
the produce of the country to England, usually by way of 

95 



96 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the West India Islands, where they would make some 
change of cargo. Samuel Carpenter and others were grow- 
ing rich by their mills, their ships, and their trade. This 
trade was much checked during the French and Spanish 
wars, between 1702 and 1712. 

The farmers, too, were prospering with everything they 
needed except money. This all went to England to pay the 
debts of a rapidly growing colony. A gold or silver coin 
was a curiosity, and paper money was not yet introduced. 
Exchange was usually by barter, and tobacco, wheat, and 
almost any other produce served the purpose of a circulat- 
ing medium. Even the quit-rents were paid in wheat, and 
the proprietor at times was glad to get it. The purchases 
were being surveyed, and the farmers were ascertaining their 
exact boundaries. Cattle ran at large over the unoccupied 
lands, each man branding and ear-marking his own stock. 
Eangers were appointed to gather in strays, a certain part 
of which went to the proprietary. 

The city was growing up and down the river on either 
side of Market Street (then High Street), and extended back 
to Fifth or Sixth Street. The houses were mostly of brick 
and were substantially built. There was a dearth of ofl&cial 
houses, and we find the council renting'^ ale houses" and 
rooms in private residences, while the assembly often sat in 
the Friends' meeting-houses. 

Penn had offered the council and assembly the permission 
to choose their own deputy, but they declined. Mark- 
liam was nearing his death ; '^poor honest Colonel Mark- 
liam," as Logan describes him We owe him at least one 
great debt. He kept the minutes of the council for about 
twenty years with clearness and good judgment, and they 
constitute the best contemporary history of the times. 
He impresses one as a sensible, useful man who never got 
his deserts. Penn then selected Andrew Hamilton, who 
died in a few months ; and Edward Shippen, as president 
of the council, was acting lieutenant-governor for about a 
year. In February, 1704, came John Evans, another of 
Penn's unfortunate appointments. 




JAMES LOGAN. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 97 

The political situation became rapidly confused as soon 
as the proprietor left the province. Three parties appeared. 
It is impossible to have complete sympathy with any one 
of them. 

The proprietary party, with James Logan as leader, was 
composed for the most part of the more wealthy, better- 
educated Friends of the city of Philadelphia. They aided 
the governor and possessed the council. Sympathizing pro- 
foundly with Penn in his difficulties, and, to a certain extent, 
in his aspirations, their endeavor was to conduct the prov- 
ince in accordance with his wishes and his interests. Logan, 
reserved, unpopular outside his own circle, sharp with his 
tongue, harsh in his judgment on his enemies, and pos- 
sessing the ear of Penn, is accountal)le for some of the 
difficulties of the situation. I^evertheless, so strong was 
Penn in the affection and resj^ect of the people that Logan 
would probably have carried through his policy and made 
Pennsylvania something of an aristocracy, had it not been 
for the follies and iniquities of Governor Evans. 

The second part^^ was the popular party, led by David 
Lloyd, which for several years ruled the assembly. Lloyd 
was probably the ablest lawj^^er of the province. He was a 
Friend of good standing, and thoroughly devoted to the 
anti-martial, anti-swearing views of his society, from which 
he never budged. He was a democrat, an enthusiast for 
popular rights, and a strenuous opponent of the policy of 
Logan and the governors, who sought the increase, or at 
least the maintenance, of proprietary prerogatives. So far 
we may sympathize with him, but we cannot justify his 
methods. Indeed, he repeatedly overreached himself and lost 
the confidence of his own party. He was a correspondent 
and probably an abettor of the Fords, and a remonstrance 
he drafted (to be mentioned directly) betrayed a personal 
bitterness against Penn. He did not scruple to employ 
misrepresentation and exaggeration to wound the feelings 
and increase the difficulties of the proprietary. His party 
mainly consisted of the country Friends who admired his 
abilities, his stanch Quakerism, and his democratic tenden- 

7 



98 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

cies, but who threw him overboard when his virulence be- 
came too manifest. Except during short intervals he re- 
tained his intiuence till his death, rising finally to be chief 
justice of the province. Xo man, except Penn, had more 
to do in moulding its government. 

The other party was the church party, still in a small 
minority, but with such strong allies in England that it 
made itself largely felt in the affairs of the province. It 
was out of sympathy with both the other parties, demanding 
defence against external enemies and the imposition of oaths 
to secure fidelity and truthfulness. Its claim was that these 
were as much a matter of conscience to it as the absence 
of them was to the Quakers. According to Logan, it refused 
to subscribe to a declaration which Penn wished its leading 
members to sign, asserting the absence of persecution for 
religion, because it said the denial of the superiority it held 
in England was in itself persecution. Without strength 
either in council or assembly, its principal mode of attack 
was to trouble the Quaker officials by securing from Eng- 
land commands to administer oaths to such as were willing 
to take them. Some Quakers resigned, having as much 
scruple against administering as taking oaths, while others 
temporized. By the continuation of the process it was hoped 
finally to drive all of them from power. The object of this 
party was to have Pennsylvania made a crown colony with 
an established church, the English toleration act, and an 
effective militarj^ organization. Its leader was Colonel 
Robert Quarry, Judge of the Admiralty, whose duty it was 
to protect the interests of the crown. He was independent 
of the colonial government, and for a number of years was 
a sharp thorn in the flesh of Penn and Logan, without, 
however, accomplishing much. Lloyd was, of course, utterly 
opposed to the claims of Quarry, though willing to use them 
in his controversy with the proprietary, who heartily dis- 
liked both. 

The first question which brought these differences to an 
issue was whether the assembly had a right to adjourn when 
it pleased. This body contended that it had. The council 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 99 

urged that the constitution of 1701 limited the right to short 
periods, but the assembly decided the matter by adjourning. 
To make a show of power, the council prorogued it to the 
day when it was again to assemble. But the battle was won 
by the popular body, led by David Lloyd. 

That leader was so much encouraged that he persuaded 
the assembly to go a step farther. He resolved to attack 
the proprietary in person, whom he judged, probably 
rightly, was behind Governor Evans and Secretary Logan. 
During the closing days of the session of 1704 nine resolu- 
tions were adopted, complaining of certain difficulties which 
were assumed to be Penn's fault ; these were referred to 
a committee to amplify and forward to him. They were 
supposed to be Lloyd's work, and were full of vindictive, 
unreasonable fault-finding, interspersed with some basis of 
truth. Logan states in a letter, and his words are confirmed 
by Isaac Norris, who of all the men of the time maintained 
the most even judgment, that the writers transcended their 
instructions, signed the document without authority, and 
interpolated the minutes to give it the appearance of le- 
gality. Certainly, when the next assembly, composed of 
nearly the same members, found out what was sent they 
made a pretence of repudiating it. 

The paper charged Penn with encouraging the infringe- 
ment of their liberties in the right of adjournment ; of not 
securing relief for the Quaker officials in the matter of 
oaths ; of not succeeding in having the laws confirmed by 
the crown ; of taking money from the province for public 
purposes, which he converted to his own use ; of per- 
sonally sympathizing and associating with the enemies of 
the best interests of the province ; of not fulfilling his 
promises in monej' matters ; of appointing judges, com- 
missioners of property, and other officers who, being re- 
sponsible to him, denied justice to the people ; and finally, 
they called attention to the increase of vice in the colony, 
w hich they inferred was due to the license and example of 
Governor Evans and William Penn, Jr. 

The address was a bitter humiliation to the proprietor, and 



100 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

was made a>s hard to bear as possible by being sent, not to 
him directly, but to three men of some prominence, who 
were personally unfriendly to him. Perhaps the hardest 
blow w£is the intimation that his son had demoralized the 
colony. There was some truth in it, but the information 
should not have come in a public document from the pen 
of a jiolitical and personal opponent. William Penn, Jr., 
had lived a dissipated life in England, and he was sent over 
by his father in the care of Logan and Evans, with instruc- 
tions to make as much of him as possible, and to keep him 
interested in hunting and fishing. Pennsbury was placed 
at his disposal, and he was made a member of the governor's 
council. Men of standing and character, like Samuel Car- 
penter, Isaac Norris, and Edward Shippen, were requested 
to exert what influence they could in a kindly way. The 
experiment did not succeed, and ended when young Penn 
and Governor Evans were arrested in a drunken disturbance 
late at night, after an attempt to beat off the guard. He 
died not long after as a result of his wild life. Penn at- 
tributed his demoralization to inability to care for him 
in early life, owing to colonial engagements. His only 
other son by his first wife, the promising and gifted Sprin- 
gett, had died shortly before. 

When the nature of the address and its reception was 
noised abroad in the province, the condemnation was gen- 
eral. The next assembly tried to shield itself under the 
general irresponsibility for the acts of its predecessor, but 
finally published a disclaimer, which it directed Lloyd, as 
speaker, to send to Penn in England. That worthy man 
obeyed the order, butalsosent a private letter directing that 
it should not be delivered. The vessel being taken by the 
French, the whole matter was secured by a friend of Penn 
and given to him, which did not tend to mollify his feelings 
towards David Lloyd. 

The speaker was as distinctly repudiated by the province. 
In 1705 the assembly was a new one, only eleven of the 
twenty-six old members being re-elected, and of the eleven 
seven were friendly to Penn. Lloyd was defeated in the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 101 

county of Philadelpliia. He, however, came in from the 
city, but lost the speakership. The assembly was in excel- 
lent accord with the governor and council, voted money 
freely for the use of the government, and x)assed a long list 
of useful bills with despatch and dignity. Lloyd had gone 
too far, and nothing was needed but wisdom and prudence 
on the part of the governor to maintain the harmony. But 
wisdom and prudence that official did not possess. By a 
series of remarkable blunders he alienated all the support 
he had gained. 

There was in the assembly, from Bucks County, William 
Biles, an old man who preceeded Penn in his coming to the 
colony, a minister among the Friends, to whom, however, 
he had caused considerable trouble, because he would sell 
rum to the Indians. He was self-willed and irascible, and, 
Logan tells us, controlled pretty effectually, as a partisan 
of Lloyd, the politics of 'Hhat debauched county." In 
the heat of some controversy he said of the governor, '* He 
is but a boy and not fit to be governor. We'll kick him 
out." This might readily have been overlooked, but Evans 
was now in a condition to revenge himself, so he had the old 
assemblyman before the court, which fined him three hundred 
pounds. It was expected that the matter would drop here and 
that the fine would be remitted, but Evans appears to have 
wanted the money. Public opinion, which had sustained 
him up to this point, now deserted him. The assembly 
refused his demand to expel their member, and protested 
against his arrest as a blow to their privileges. The Quaker 
ladies of the town rather ostentatiously looked after their 
minister's wants in jail, and he was finally released and went 
off to his farm and store at Falls in no friendly humor. 

Still more serious was another piece of folly of the gov- 
ernor. He was having the usual contest with the Quaker 
assembly about a militia. That body was willing that Evans 
should establish a voluntary militia, but would make no 
provision for it either by voting money or making regula- 
tions. He adopted an expedient, the object of which prob- 
ably was to show that the Quaker opposition to war 



10:^ HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

would not stund the test of an emergency, and so to dis- 
credit them. 

There was an annual fair in Philadelphia, and in the 
midst of the largest a.ssemblage he had a messenger ride in 
in great ha.ste and announce that the Fj-ench fleet was com- 
ing up the Delaware. The governor himself mounted his 
lioi^e and rode up and down the streets, calling all the men 
to arm and assemble on "Society Hill," at Second and Pine 
Streets. The alarm was great. The small boats sought 
refuge up the river and small creeks ; valuables were thrown 
into wells ; women became hysterical, and children were 
sent into the country. The people mustered as requested, 
but xevy few Friends were among them. It happened to be 
the day of mid-week meeting, and the members were just 
gathering as the alarm came. They held their meeting in 
their usual quiet style, and paid no attention to the excite- 
ment. 

The assembly charged Logan with being an accomplice, 
by heading off a boat which would have dissipated the 
story. He himself says he went out to investigate the 
rumor and prove its falsity, and his statement is probably 
correct. 

Presently the real truth of the story, as well as the char- 
acter and motives of the governor, came out. Every one 
was disgusted at the foolish attempt. Quaker principles 
had not been discredited, but the folly of Evans was clearly 
shown. 

Still more futile was another attack on the liberties of the 
pi-ovince, and this time he antagonized the proprietary's 
l)est friends. Evans was also governor over Delaware, 
whcKse assembly was not controlled by Quakers. He per- 
suaded them, or they him, to erect a fort in the river and 
charge toll on all vessels passing by. This was a direct blow 
at the trade of Philadelphia, which several of the leading 
nierehantvS determined to meet. Three wealthy Quakers 
were about despatching a boat to Barbadoes loaded with 
merchandise. One of them, Eichard Hill, an old seaman, 
took the helm himself and resolved to defy the fort. Evans 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 103 

learned of it, and himself went to take charge of the col- 
lection of the toll. The guns were fired at the sloo^), 
but it sailed by with a hole through the main-sail. Hill 
entered Salem Creek, and found there, to his sur]Drise, 
Lord Cornbury, governor of New York and New Jersey. 
Evans had also chased the sloop in his boat. They left 
the matter to the arbitrament of Lord Cornburj^, whose 
decision was in favor of Hill. Evans had no recourse ex- 
cei)t to threaten prosecution, but finding his own council 
and every one else opi)Osed to him, gave up and the fort 
was demolished. 

These matters destroyed the little temporary popularity 
of the governor, and Lloyd was again in the saddle. For 
several years we have the spectacle of an alert and able 
manager, ''boss" we could now call him, by his unwearied 
attention to the details of politics, remaining in power, 
though the sober thought of the country was strongly op- 
posed to him. Thus, in 1705, he was left in a hoi)eless mi- 
nority. A year later, owing to the follies of Evans, there was 
a Lloyd legislature, and this continued till, in 1710, a new 
and better governor gave the province a taste of wiser man- 
agement. The plan of this early political manager, as of so 
many since his time, was to secure the election of respectable 
but not strong men, who would support him in his plans. 
When matters were quiet, or the tide ran against the pro- 
prietary through the follies of his lieutenant, the better men 
would stay at home. When, however, they roused them- 
selves they made the Lloyd influence subordinate. 

This much, however, must be said for the work of David 
Lloyd. It made Pennsylvania a 'pnre democracy ; it made 
the j)0]3ular assembly the ruling body, a state of things 
which stood the province in good stead when the proprie- 
taries, later in its history, attemi:)ted to make serious inroads 
upon its privileges ; it probably also put vigor and vitality 
into the Quaker testimonies against war and oaths. Lloyd 
was perhaps in his political contests bitter, vindictive, and 
swayed by his passions, but the ends he carried were such 
as we would now approve, and Pennsylvania would hive 



104 HISTORY OF PEXXSYLVAXIA. 

])eeii ii different state had the policy of Logan in these for- 
mative days had no effective counterpoise. 

Lloyd was evidently very much incensed against Logan, and 
having now complete command of the assembly he pro- 
ceeded to impeach the secretary. There were a number of 
technical charges of usurj^ation of authority, which were 
drawn up as articles and presented to the council, but that 
body postponed the hearing on the plea of doubtful author- 
ity, and Logan, in 1709, carried the case over to England, 
where, after a stay of two years he was triumphantly ac- 
quitted by the i)roi3rietary and public oi:)inion, and returned 
to his old station. 

Penn finally concluded that Evans had stirred up enough 
trouble, and early in 1709 he replaced him by Colonel Charles 
Gookin. The proprietary's affairs were now improving. 
He was cleared of the Ford business. His influence at 
court, always strong since Queen Anne came upon the 
throne; further increased when the burden of debt was off 
him. It is true his province was suffering from the 
disturbance to trade caused by French privateers and the 
iniquities of Evans, but these were soon to be rectified. It 
only required a rebound of public confidence towards him 
in the province to complete his tranquility, and this came 
in 1710. 

Colonel Gookin was not a very wise man. He was irasci- 
ble, and possibly during the latter part of his career he was 
somewhat deranged. But he was a respectable person of 
honest intentions, and the country felt no fear of him. He 
found in session one of Lloyd's assemblies and the same one 
practically was returned in the fall of 1709. A year later 
there came a great popular revulsion. The liberality and 
goodness of the proprietary, and the difficulties i)iled upon 
liim by their own ill-considered remonstrances and petty 
differences, seemed to have taken hold of the voters, and 
they returned an assembly, leaving out every member of 
the last one. Lloyd himself was defeated and stayed out 
two years, moving to Chester to reside. When he returned 
to public life it seemed to be with a new spirit, and the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 105 

part lie took afterwards appears to have been entirely cred- 
itable to him. Every member of the new assembly was a 
friend of Penn, and it included such substantial men as 
Isaac Korris, Kichard Hill, William Trent, Thomas Masters, 
and Caleb Pusey. As in 1705, the records show, instead of 
fencing and fighting, the passage of a long list of valuable 
laws, which were promptly signed. 

One of these is of peculiar interest as being the first at- 
tempt in America to legislate against slavery. It was an 
act preventing the imj^ortation of negroes and Indians. 
The Quaker meetings had been moving in the matter and the 
assembly resi)onded. Unfortunately, the mother country 
considered its interests jeopardized and repealed the law. 
English companies had been chaitered to supply the col- 
onies with slaves. The benevolent intention of the Penn- 
sylvanians came in contact with the commercial schemes of 
England and had to be abandoned. 

The difficulty with regard to war supplies was also har- 
moniously settled. Gookin had been asked bj^ the home 
government to raise one hundred and fifty men at the ex- 
pense of the province towards an army to invade Canada. 
He suggested, anticipating trouble, that if the assembly 
would appropriate four thousand pounds he would find the 
men without violating any conscience. The governor him- 
self, in a letter to London, gives an account of the pro- 
ceedings. ''The Queen having i^ressed me with her com- 
mand that this province should furnish 150 men for its 
expedition against Canada I called an assembly and de- 
manded £4000. They being all Quakers after much delay 
resolved X. C. that it was contrary to their religious princi- 
l)les to hire men to kill one another. I told some of them 
the Queen did not hire men to kill one another but to destroy 
her enemies. One of them answered the assembly under- 
stood English. After I had tried all ways to bring them 
to reason they again resolved N.C. that they could not 
directly or indirectly raise money for an expedition to 
Canada but they had voted the Queen £500 as a token of 
their respect &c. and that the money should be put into safe 



IOC, HISTORY OF 1T.NNSYLVANIA. 

liaiid till they were satisfied from England it should not be 
enii)loyed for the use of war, . . . They are entirely gov- 
erned by their speaker one David Lloyd." 

The next assembly was more pliable. ^ ' We did not see 
it/' Isaac Xorris said, ''to be inconsistent with our princi- 
ples to give the Queen money notwithstanding any use she 
might x^iit it to, that not being our i)art but hers." 

So they quietly voted two thousand pounds ''for the 
Queen's use," with this explanation : 

"That the majority of the people of this province being 
of the people called Quakers religiously persuaded against 
war and therefore cannot be active therein ; yet are as fully 
persuaded and believe it to be their bounden duty to pay trib- 
ute, and yield due obedience to the powers God has set over 
them in all things, as far as their religious persuasions can 
adniit ; and therefore we take this occasion to express oui' 
duty loyalty and faithful obedience to our rightful and gra- 
cious Queen Anne and accordingly have voted the sum of 
£2000 to be raised by the inhabitants of this province for 
the Queen's use which we hope will be taken in good part 
and accepted as a token of our duty. ' ' This was the last 
difference about war measures for nearly thirty years. 
Peace was secured in 1713, and the province entered upon 
a career of great prosperity. 

Tlie financial and political difficulties of William Penn 
had been so serious that he had concluded to sell his rights 
in Pennsylvania to the crown. As early as May, 1703, a 
minute of the Board of Trade states, "A letter from Mr. 
Penn signifying his willingness to resign the government of 
Pennsylvania to the Crown upon a reasonable satisfaction 
and with the preservation of some few privileges was re- 
ceived." Tlie difficulty consisted in these "few privileges." 
'11 ley related to the rights of Quakers in the government. 
Penn did not mean that they should be deprived of their 
share in managing affairs because they would not take 
oaths or bear arms. In the same year he wrote to Logan, 
" It was not to be thought that a colony and constitution of 
go\(M-ninent made by and for Quakers would leave them- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 107 

selves and their lives and fortnnes out of so essential a 
part of government as juries." And yet lie saw that ex- 
actly this would hapx3en if the king should have the execu- 
tive appointment. Oaths would be imjDosed and Quakers 
excluded from juries and other official stations. It was to 
preserve these rights of his colonists that Penn delayed the 
sale. Had he sold he would have been very easy in his 
money matters^ for a good sum was ready for him. All the 
while these same colonists were sending over ugly remon- 
strances for his neglect of them, and Logan was writing 
urging him to make the best terms possible without regard 
to the civil and religious privileges of an ungrateful people. 
His demand that ' ' the peoj)le called Quakers be continued 
as capable and eligible to any civil employment" was the 
main block in the way of the sale. But "Their Lordship 
object especially to the expressions relating to Liberty of 
Conscience (in Penn's conditions) which he said was at 
present provided for by the laws of the i)rovince." 

Thus the differences went on till 1712, when he succeeded 
in completing the bargain. The price was to be twelve 
thousand pounds, he, of course, reserving his manors and 
other private property, and he says, '^ I have taken effec- 
tual care that all the laws and privileges I have granted to 
you shall be preserved by the queen's governors ; and that 
we who are Friends shall be in a more particular manner 
regarded and treated by the queen. So that you will not, I 
hope and believe, have a less interest in the government, 
being humble and discreet in your conduct." 

One thousand pounds were paid by the government on 
account, but a stroke of apoplexy made Penn incapable of 
completing the transfer, and the sale was not consummated. 
The failure was to the great advantage not only of Penn- 
sylvania but of the family of William Penn. 

In the mean time excellent relations between the pro- 
prietary and his colonists had been resumed. Before the 
favorable election of 1710 Penn had written an eloquent and 
pathetic plea for friendliness and sympathy. It did not 
reach the province till after the election, and hence did not 



108 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

inrtuence it. The reaction had come without any effort on 
his part. But the letter was widely read in the Quaker 
meetings and elsewhere, and the hearts of the people went 
out to their leader. As soon as they saw a chance for a 
little good government from his hands, and knew how 
deeply he and they had been imposed uj^on by designing 
men, there remained no i)lace for an anti-proprietary party.. 
During the life of Penn and of his widow the relations were 
all that could be desired, and when, thirty years later, a 
party opposed to the sons of Penn appeared, it was based 
on new issues and was led by new leaders. While an alert 
and prosperous people were demanding liberty, sometimes 
unwisely, and a series of not very sagacious lieutenant- 
governors were defending their masters' prerogatives, also 
sometimes unwisely, there would of necessity be differences. 
But bitterness was gone, and from this time the memory 
of Penn was revered in his colony as a wise and far-seeing 
legislator, a generous defender of popular rights, a pious 
and consistent minister. 

Before resuming the history of the province we will take 
leave of its founder. While writing a business letter to 
Logan, dated 4th 8th month (October), 1712, he was stricken 
with paralysis. He recovered in a week so as to add as a 
postscript, "My dear love to all my dear friends." Other 
attacks soon followed, and though he lived till 1718, to the 
age of seventy- four years, his mind was weakened, and in 
happy forgetfulness of earthly troubles, but in a living 
sense of the Divine presence, he spent the last six years of 
his lite. During this time his wife, Hannah Penn, con- 
ducted with great wisdom the affairs of the province. 



CHAPTER VI. 

1712-1726. 

Gookin's Salary — The Oath Troubles — Jonathan Hayes — Stiffening 
the Penal Code — Governor Keith — Death of Penn — His Heirs — 
Economy in Administration — Issues of Paper Money — Attack on 
Logan — His Vindication, 

Governor Gookin managed to live for a time in har- 
mony with the assembly. For his own sake it was desir- 
able that he shonld, for his salary was dependent upon its 
bounty. It was a humiliating alternative to which the lieu- 
tenant-governors were often reduced, of having to swallow 
their convictions and do the behests of the representatives 
of the people, or be deprived of the means of living. 
Gookin sometimes humbly, sometimes with spirit, asked 
for the modest compensation which, as a poor bachelor, 
he thought his services deserved. But after five years 
of forced economy and reasonable subservience to the 
popular will, one can hardly wonder that he became some- 
what exasperated. It was unfortunate, however, that his 
wrath took exactly the forms it did. When the house on 
the first day of the session did not find itself in possession 
of a quorum, Gookin refused to recognize its rights, even 
to adjourn for one day, would not legalize any of its acts, 
and sent a delegation from his house with threats and re- 
proaches. He charged Eichard Hill, the speaker, and 
James Logan, with being disloyal to the reigning monarch, 
George I., and friends of the pretender. Isaac Korris also 
became a subject of his enmity, and he protected a wretch 
who attempted to assassinate him. 

A more far-reaching difficulty occurred in connection 
with the much- discussed question of oaths. In 1711 the 
assembly passed an act, which Gookin signed, which made 

109 



no HISTORY OF PENNSYLVAxMA. 

the affirmaiion legal in all cases where a scruple existed 
about l)eiug sworn. 

The act began, '^ That when any person who for conscience' 
sake cannot take an oath shall be called before any magis- 
trate or proper officer to give evidence in any matter or case 
whatever, such magistrate or officer shall administer the 
affirmation as hereinafter directed to such person or persons 
in these words, ^ A. B., thou art called here to give thy evi- 
dence ; dost thou protest solemnly and declare that the 
evidence thou shalt give be the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth' ?" 

The Quakers objected to oaths mainly on the grounds of 
biblical prohibition, as they understood it, but also because 
the careless way of using the name of God in courts w^as a 
profanation. Hence many of them objected also to the 
common form of affirmation, w^hich contained the expres- 
sion, '' in the presence of Almighty God." To satisfy this 
feeling the above act was passed. When it finally got to 
the Queen in 1714 she repealed it. A year later it was 
practically passed again, and again signed by Gookin. This 
plan of re-enactment of offending laws worked very well 
in general, provided the governor could be induced to sign, 
and w^as frequently resorted to. The laws were valid till 
repealed. 

Shortly after, however, the English act regulating the 
matter was extended to the colonies for five years. By this 
Quakers could not give evidence in any criminal case, nor 
sit on juries, nor hold any civil office. The governor now 
gave it as his opinion that this repealed the provincial 
law, and was properly in force. It was put to him with 
great urgency, both by council and assembly, that the con- 
ditions of tlieir charter made their laws of force till repealed 
by tlie Queen in the usual way ; that the English law when 
enacted was in the nature of an extension of Quaker rights, 
not a denial, and that the new regulation differed from but 
was not repugnant to it. 

It was also j^ointed out to him that his construction would 
prove ruinous to the colony, and was in the nature of bad 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. Ill 

faith. The charters and privileges were given to Pennsyl- 
vania when the conditions of Quaker rule were perfectly 
known. Nearly all the judgeships, magistracies, and other 
positions were held by Quakers, who constituted by far the 
largest part of the men of education and position in the 
province. In the country, in many localities, there were no 
others. Justice could not go on, notorious crimes could not 
be testified against, and the machinery of courts would 
breakdown. But Gookin was firm. The judges hesitated 
to perform any duties under the governor's interpretation 
of the law, and for two years the colony got along without 
much government, the Quaker meetings supplying the de- 
ficiency so far as their own members were concerned. 

Gookin finally became unbearable, and the council sent a 
unanimous petition to Penn to appoint a successor. The 
proprietor was too enfeebled to act in the matter, but his 
widow selected from among numerous applicants William 
Keith, who came to the province in 1717. 

Only one very serious case seems to have been carried 
over to the new administration as a result of Gookin' s legal 
interpretations. In 1715, Jonathan Hayes, a prosi3erous 
farmer of Chester County was murdered. The crime was 
fixed upon two men of low character, with considerable 
certainty, but just then the governor's opinion as to the 
invalidity of a criminal trial without oaths was published, 
and as the court declined to act, the prisoners were finally 
released on bail. They became very boisterous and im- 
pudent, and were a sore trial to their Quaker neighbors. 
When Keith came into power they were brought to trial 
according to provincial law. Eight of the jury were Qua- 
kers, as well as a number of the witnesses, and they were 
af&rmed. Governor Keith himself attended the trial, as did 
also David Lloyd, now chief justice. The prisoners were 
adjudged guilty, and with this judgment the governor 
agreed. They appealed to England, basing their case on 
the illegality of a criminal trial without oaths. The gov- 
ernor and council, however, decided there was no appeal, 
and they were executed, The affair made a great stir in 



11^ HISTORY OF PExNNSYLVANIA. 

England. It was held to be monstrous that the life of a 
citizen should be taken by an unsworn jury, and the whole 
matter soon came up for settlement. 

In 1718 the assembly passed an act which made an affir- , 
mat ion, of the form used in England which included the 
name of God, legal, on exactly the same footing as an oath, 
and untruthfulness punishable as j)erjury. It mentions as the 
excuse for its passage '^Forasmuch as the greatest part of 
the inhabitants of the province are such who for conscience' 
sake cannot take an oath in any case, yet without their as- 
sistance justice cannot (be) well administered, and too great 
a burden will fall on the other inhabitants." That this 
passed the councillors of the king the following year Is 
probably owing to its being coupled with other provisions to 
make it palatable. 

These are of such a character as will now hardly be com- 
mended. We have seen that William Penn included murder 
and treason onlj' in his list of cai^ital crimes. The colony, 
while i)robably not more troubled with criminals than others, 
was, as a result, subject to a continued series of charges 
of laxity of administration. Governor Keith appears to 
have shrewdly suggested to the Quaker assembly that their 
contention with regard to affirmations might more easily 
prevail if they would adopt the English criminal law. So 
it proved ; and the same act which gained the one added 
to the list of capital offences, highw^ay robbery, maiming, 
burglary, and other serious crimes against i)erson or prop- 
erty, and a future enactment added counterfeiting. More- 
over, the bill practically turned over to the English leg- 
islature their criminal code for the future, by enacting 
^' When any person or persons shall be so as aforesaid con- 
victed or attainted of any of the crimes, they shall suffer as 
the laws of Great Britain now do or hereafter shall direct and 
require in such cases respectively." One of the sources of 
the admiration we have felt towards William Penn has 
been his penal code, so far in advance of his time. It is 
fitting, perhaps, that this code did not outlive its author. Up 
to the Revolution the new law was C9/rried into effect, but by 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 113 



1776 public opinion had advanced to the standard of 1682, 
and Penn's list of capital crimes was re-enacted. It was 
right that the Quakers should have their consciences shielded 
in the matter of oaths. We may perhaps hold that they 
paid more than an equivalent for the liberty ; though so far 
as we know, no protest came up from any civil or ecclesi- 
astical body, and the law was executed in its severity through 
all the colonial days. 

By the efforts of governor and assembly the matter of 
oaths was finally disposed of by an act passed in 1724, and 
confirmed a year later by the crown, which from that time 
to this defines the status of all opposed in conscience to 
oaths. A form of affirmation omitting the deity's name, 
being simply a promise to speak the truth, was adopted. 
Those having no scruple were still permitted to take the 
oath. Consciences were perfectly easy. It, however, drove 
Quakers from all positions where the administration of 
oaths was a part of the duties. An official could not de- 
cline this function if any individual demanded it. As a 
minority member of a board administering oaths he might 
retain the place, refusing participation in the objectionable 
measures. But the consistent Friends of those days resigned 
or declined a line of judicial and magisterial positions which 
they had previously held, and for which their attainments 
qualified them. Those who were not consistent were brought 
into the traces by their meetings. 

Governor Keith seemed, for a time, to succeed admirably. 
He kept in close touch with the assembly, treated it with 
great courtesy, and seemed anxious to join with it in provid- 
ing for the wants of the colony with great assiduity. He had 
his reward in money, which they voted him liberally, and in 
popularity. He wrote for them an address to the crown, 
eulogizing the Quakers as steady, trustworthy people, and 
pleading for their liberty to have affirmations. 

By the will of William Penn, he left his English and Irish 
estates to the children of his first wife, and Pennsylvania to 
younger children, — of whom at this time there were five : 
John, Thomas, Margaret, Eichard, and Dennis, — with their 

8 



114 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

mother as executrix and guardian. William Penn, Jr., 
made a short-lived attempt to break the will, and, as pro- 
prietor, sent instructions to Keith to cherish the Church of 
England and maintain a militia. The government, as dis- 
tinct from the land, was left to three lords in trust, to com- 
plete the sale to the crown. A suit was instituted to ascer- 
tain ownership, and in the mean time but little attention 
was paid to the eldest son, who died about two years after 
his father, his son Springett outliving him but a little time. 
Mrs. Penn practically directed affairs, and the suit con- 
firmed her in the place. 

In the mean time she was greatly aided by the politic 
conduct of Keith. Under him affairs were moving on in 
the province with a smoothness and facility hitherto un- 
known. Both governor and assembly were anxious to do 
the right thing. He announced his intentions of taking his 
directions only from the old proprietary's instructions, and 
as it turned out, this i>roved the right thing to do. 

Industrial conditions were also favorable. The agricul- 
tural production was superabundant. To increase the foreign 
demand, laws were passed appointing inspectors to certify to 
the quality of the flour and salted meats, and these soon 
gained a reputation which made the export trade a feature 
of great importance. To increase the home consumption, 
the use of foreign foods, like sugar and molasses, was dis- 
couraged, and these laws in time helped to work out the de- 
sired results. 

The government expenses were kept low. Keith was al- 
lowed nine hundred and fifty pounds, and the tavern and 
other licenses, which doubled his income. Collectors of 
customs were paid commissions on their receipts, and the 
judges, except the chief justice who was paid a salary, were 
rewarded by fees. Then there were presents to Indians, the 
payment for London influence and other smaU matters, so 
that the total annual expense of the provincial government 
under Keith was about fifteen hundred pounds, and this was 
paid by a tax on real and personal property, duties on 
spirits, flax, hops, and negroes, and the interest on loans. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 115 

By dexterous flattery the governor induced the assembly 
to establish equity courts, the judges to be appointed by 
himself, and a militia. He assured them that no military 
requirements would be made and no conscience violated. 
He was strong enough to avert the danger of an act inquir- 
ing into the property and religious qualifications of the 
German immigrants as a condition of citizenship, and with 
great skill he warded off trouble with the Indians when one 
of their number was killed under aggravated circumstances 
by the whites, their chief finally requesting that the offender 
should not be put to death, ^'one life is enough to be lost, 
there should not two die." 

The crowning effort of Keith, which restored commercial 
as well as political prosperity to the colony, was the issue of 
paper money. There was a great deficiency in the medium 
of exchange. England refused to admit provincial manufac- 
tures, and the purchases from the mother country were many 
and varied. Everything must be paid for in gold and silver. 
The provinces all felt the drain of money, and resorted to 
divers expedients to remedy the loss. In Pennsylvania pro- 
duce was made a legal tender, and the rate of interest was 
reduced from eight to six per cent., but the evil continued. 
Several of the colonies had issued paper money, and the 
immediate effects being agreeable, had continued the pro- 
cess so far as to produce a great depreciation. There is not 
much wonder, therefore, that when the governor proposed 
the measure, Norris, Logan, and other conservative men 
strongly objected. Yet we must now judge him to have 
been right, for so judiciously and cautiously were the issues 
made that the new money maintained its equality with gold. 

The process devised in Keith's time, first adopted in 1723, 
and to which the colonists became warmly attached, was as 
follows : The first issue was fixed at fifteen thousand pounds, 
and bills were in size from one to twenty shillings. Any 
owner of plate or unencumbered real estate could procure 
these bills, pledging his property and paying five per cent, 
per annum. The loan on plate could be for one year only, 
on real estate for eight years. 



116 mSTOUY OF PENNSYLVANIA. * 

The amount loaned to one person could not be less than 
twelve or more than one hundred pounds, unless part of 
the loan remained untaken. One-eighth of the principal 
of the loans on the real estate was to be repaid annually. 
The money thus paid in was to be applied to the purchase 
of other bills, which were then to be ''sunk" or destroyed. 
Careful provision was made against counterfeiting, and the 
bills thus became a circulating medium, and a legal tender 
at par for the payment of all debts. 

The act j^roved so useful that a year later an additional 
issue of thirty thousand pounds was decreed, to run twelve 
and a half years, with one important modification. The 
bills, when paid in, were to be reissued on new loans, thus 
preserving the volume of the paper currency. 

The process was continued till the Eevolution, and finally 
became a favorite plan of the popular party. The pro- 
prietors always opposed it, fearing dei^reciation and disaster. 
It is much to the credit of the assembly that it studied the 
problem carefully, determined judicially the limits of safety, 
and for fifty years maintained the system without fear of 
any repudiation, and to the manifest benefit of the province 
in the peculiar position in which it was placed. 

While Keith was vastly jDopular with the assembly and the 
people, the council was suspicious and distrustful. He^ 
joined heartily in the contention of the party of David 
Lloyd that the latter body had no place in legislation. It 
was not mentioned in the charter which gave the governor 
and freemen the sole power to enact laws. It was only 
mentioned incidentally in the constitution of 1701, and 
Keith contended that he might do as he pleased in signing 
laws without regard to its advice. Constitutionally he was 
right, but he was the servant of the j^roprietaries, who could 
remove him at will, and who had directed him to do nothing 
without advice. He, however, flattered himself that his 
popular strength would enable him to defy his employers. 
He removed Logan from his positions as secretary of the 
province and member of the council, on the i)lea that a 
certain minute was not respectful to himself. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 117 

The ex-secretary imniediately sailed to England, and had 
the satisfaction of returning with letters from Mrs. Penn, re- 
storing him to his positions and reprehending the governor. 
She censured him for appointing new councillors without 
the consent of those already existing, and, while admitting 
that they did not legally have a part in government, con- 
sidered their advice and aid necessary in transacting his 
important duties. Logan was unqualifiedly endorsed, and 
a strong hint was conveyed to Keith that it might be neces- 
sary to change governors if he were not more obedient. 

Keith appears to have believed that the failure to re- 
move him resulted from the tangled condition of pro- 
prietary affairs in England, and his own successful adminis- 
tration. Consequently he concluded to take the assembly 
into his confidence, and conveyed to it Mrs. Penn's letter 
of instructions and his own reply. Logan therefore thought 
it necessary to vindicate the proprietary family and himself 
by a long explanation ; the war horse, David Lloyd, from 
his place as chief justice, could not see his old adversary 
in the field without issuing an address in favor of the 
champion of popular rights, arguing that a deputy had all 
the i)owers of the x)rincipal, and could not be restricted by 
instructions, all of which papers were placed upon the 
minutes of the assembly. The house responded to the 
arguments of its old leader, agreed to support the governor, 
and voted him one thousand pounds. 

Matters were evidently going too far, and Mrs. Penn 
quietly removed the governor. It is a proof of the 
devotion of the people to the proprietary family that they 
acquiesced so quietly and deserted their champion. He 
strove to raise a pojDular clamor, and had himself elected to 
the assembly, but his power was gone. His administration 
had been successful beyond all before him, he had defended 
the things about which Quakers cared the most, — liberty 
of conscience and popular power, — but we can hardly acquit 
him of unfaithfulness to his employers and the habits of a 
demagogue. He left the country suddenly in 1728 to avoid 
creditors, after an attempt to make trouble for his successor, 
and died in prison in London. 



CHAPTER VII. 

1726-1736. 

Gordon's Good Administration — ]More Paper Money — Andrew Hamil- 
ton's Letter — Deatli of Hannah Penn — Her Sons. 

The saying of Carlyle, '^ Happy the nation whose annals 
are blank in history books,'' may be applied to the adminis- 
tration of Keith's successor, Patrick Gordon. He was an 
old man of eighty-two years when he began his gover- 
norship, yet he successfully managed the affairs of the prov- 
ince for ten years. He had been a soldier of Queen Anne's 
army, and said in his first message to the assembly that he 
had imbibed simplicity and directness and an absence of 
''refined j^olitics" from camp life. Though he was subject 
to some suspicion, after Keith's discharge, for fear of his 
too great devotion to proprietary interests, his justice, 
good sense, and dignity soon gained him confidence, and he 
fortunatel}^ welded popular and proprietary interests into 
harmonious relations. He was the best of the lieutenant- 
governors. He used his council as the proprietaries ex- 
pected, but never seriously thwarted the assembly. While 
his instructions encouraged him to oppose paper money 
issues, he frankly confessed that his observations since he 
reached the province had made him favorable to them if 
carefully guarded ; that they, by stimulating industry, were 
doing as much for England as for her colony. Ship-building 
was now becoming a i^rofitable industrj^, and many a hand- 
some and well-laden boat found sale for itself and cargo at 
the end of its first voyage. The iron manufactures were 
increasing, and this had some effect in diminishing the 
drain of gold ; he did not think that authorities in England 
when they knew all the conditions would seriously oppose a 
moderate issue. 
118 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 119 

The success of paper money in the past, together with the 
annual reduction of the first issue by purchase, according 
to the laWj caused the people to clamor for more. They 
were now on relatively safe ground. They had carefully 
guarded the amount, and, unlike the other colonies, which 
had permitted the issue to rest on the credit of the govern- 
ment alone, they had secured it by plate and real estate. 
;N"evertheless, there is a gradual intoxication that comes 
over people when considering paper money, and it was well 
for the Pennsylvanians that a wise old counsellor like Pat- 
rick Gordon, while admitting the utility of the plan, could 
be heard urging moderation. By his advice the new issue 
was cut down from fifty thousand pounds to thirty thousand 
pounds, making all the money out seventy- five thousand 
pounds, and thus it remained till 1739 ; all that was paid 
in being re emitted. 

During Gordon^ s administration often years, Pennsylvania 
was in a state of great political and commercial prosperity. 

Andrew Hamilton, the speaker of the assembly, in glow- 
ing words, describes affairs in 1739. 

' ^ It is not to the fertility of our soil, and the commodious- 
ness of our rivers, that we ought chiefly to attribute the 
great progress this province has made within so small a 
compass of years, in improvements, wealth, trade, and navi- 
gation ; and the extraordinary increase of people who have 
been drawn here from almost every country in Europe ; — a 
progress which much more ancient settlements on the main 
of America cannot, at the present, boast of. !N'o. It is 
principally and almost wholly owing to the excellency of 
our constitution, under which we enjoy a greater share both 
of civil and religious liberty than any of our neighbors. 

^' It is our great happiness that instead of triennial assem- 
blies, a privilege which several other colonies have long 
endeavoured to obtain but in vain, ours are annual, and 
for that reason as well as others less liable to be practised 
upon or corrupted either with money or presents. We sit 
upon our own adjournments when we please and as long as 
we think necessary and are not to be sent a-packing in the 



120 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

middle of a debate, and disabled from representing our just ! 
grievances to our gracious sovereign, if there should be 
occasion, which has often been the hard fate of assemblies 
in other places. 

^'We have no officers but what are necessary, none but 
what earn their salaries, and those generally are either 
elected by the people or appointed by their representatives. 

''Other provinces swarm with unnecessary officers nomi- 
nated by the governors, who often make it a main part of 
their care to support those officers, notwithstanding their 
oppressions, at all events. I hope it will ever be the wis- 
dom of our assemblies to create no great offices or officers, 
nor indeed any offices at all, but what are really necessary for 
the service of the country and to be sm^e to let the people, or 
their representatives, have at least a share in their nomina- 
tion or appointment. This will always be a good security 
against the mischievous influence of men holding places at 
the pleasure of the governor. 

''Our foreign trade and shipping are free from all imposts 
except those small duties payable to his majesty by the 
statute of the law of Great Britain. The taxes which we 
pay for carrjang on the public service are inconsiderable, for 
the sole power of raising and disposing of the public money 
for the public service is lodged in the assembly who appoint 
their own treasurer and to them alone he is accountable. 
Other incidental taxes are assessed, collected, and applied by 
persons annually chosen by the people themselves. Such is 
our hapi:)y state as to civil rights. Nor are we less happy 
in the employment of a perfect freedom as to religion. By 
many years' exx:)erience, we find that an equalitj^ among 
religious societies, without distinguishing any one sect with 
greater privileges than another, is the most effectual method 
to discourage hypocrisy, promote the practise of the moral 
virtues, and prevent the plagues and mischiefs that always 
attend religious squabbling. 

' ' This is our constitution, and this constitution was framed 
by the wisdom of Mr. Penn the first proprietary and founder 
of this province, whose charter of i)rivilege to the inhabit- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 121 

ants of Pennsylvania will ever remain a monument of his 
benevolence to mankind, and reflect more lasting honor on 
his descendants than the largest possessions in the framing of 
this government. He reserved no powers to himself or his 
heirs to oppress the i)eople, no authority but what is neces- 
sary for our protection, and to hinder us from falling into 
anarchy, and, therefore (supposing we could persuade our- 
selves that all our obligations to our great lawgiver, and his 
honorable descendants, were entirely cancelled), yet our own 
interests should oblige us carefully to support the govern- 
ment on its present foundation, as the only means to secure 
to ourselves a prosperity, the enjoyments of those privileges, 
and the blessings flowing from such a constitution, under 
which we cannot fail of being happy if the fault be not our 
own. ' ' 

The record of Gordon's time relates to simple affairs : 
the effort to have duty taken off salt so that the shad 
fisheries of the Delaware could be used to profit ; the settle- 
ment of knotty questions when the Indians killed a white 
man, or the reverse ; who should pay, the proprietaries or 
the assembly, for the expenses of Indian treaties ; the setting 
off of the new County of Lancaster from Chester ; the ap- 
pointment of Ferdinand John Paris as provincial agent of 
the assembly in London, who was to see that the popular 
side of all questions was properly represented at court ; the 
claim of the French to the lands lying along the Ohio and 
its tributaries ; and the perennial quarrel with the Maryland 
proprietaries. In such days of peace and prosperity some 
of these seemed stirring questions for the statesmen of the 
province. 

David Lloyd died in 1731. The chief justiceship was 
offered first to Isaac Norris, who declined, then to James 
Logan, who accepted. During the last twenty years of 
Lloyd' s life he placed his great abilities to good use, and the 
memory of his Welsh temper being forgotten, he died gener- 
ally respected. 

Hannah Penn died in 1733, and her son Dennis being also 
dead, John, Thomas, and Richard Penn became the proprie- 



122 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

tiiries. John was called "the American/' because he was 
born in Pennsylvania during the founder's second visit. 
Both John and Thomas came to the colony during Gordon's 
administration. John soon went back to resist Lord Balti- 
more, but Thomas remained from 1732 to 1741. He was a 
man of business, who looked upon Pennsylvania as an estate 
which should be made to yield as much as possible. Well 
educated, with many accomplishments, he had yet none of 
his father's spirit of philanthropy, and none of his broad- 
minded statesmanship. He left the Society of Friends, and 
hence got out of touch with the leading men of the colony. 
The value of his estate was, by rapid colonization and pru- 
dent management, beginning to show great possibilities, and 
he set himself to work to develop it by Indian purchases, 
by the reservation from settlement of the best tracts so that 
the increase would come to himself, by gathering in his quit- 
rents and mortgages when due, and by protecting his rights 
from the aggressions of the assembly. The questions which 
in later decades separated popular and proprietary interests 
were in Gordon's time only in embryo, and Thomas Penn 
was abundantly satisfied with the financial outlook. 

John Penn died in 1746, and Thomas acquired a three- 
fourths interest in the province, so that he was considered 
practically the sole projirietor till his death in 1775. His 
possessions made him very wealthy, and he and his son John 
bought from the proceeds Stoke Park near Windsor, and 
built Pennsylvania Castle on the Island of Portland. 

Gordon died in 1736, aged ninety -two, and was succeeded 
by James Logan as president of the council, though not as 
governor. As it required the concurrent action of governor 
and assembly to enact laws, but little business was accom- 
plished during two years, and the province went on in its 
peaceful way with the impetus it had already gained. 




THOMAS PENN. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

1736-1754. 

Governor Thomas— Spanish War— Contest between Governor and 
Assembly— Isaac Norris, 2d— Benjamin Frankhn— Walking Pur- 
chase—French War- War Taxes— More Disputes— Paper Issues- 
Albany Congress — Governor Hamilton — Indian Troubles. 

George Thomas, a planter in the West Indies, assumed 
the governorship by appointment of the Penn brothers in 
1738. The era of peace and content now ended. The old 
anti-proprietary party of Lloyd was never revived after 
1710. The wise administrations of Keith and Gordon had 
not permitted any differences to crystallize into parties. 
The assembly, continuously Quaker by popular election, was 
secure in its rights, and practically unanimous in its general 
policy. The proprietors were not unpopular, and their in- 
terests and those of the colony seemed to be, as indeed they 
were, identical. The oatli question, so productive of differ- 
ences in early time, was happily settled to general satisfac- 
tion. No English wars demanded aid which peaceful con- 
sciences could not give. The free institutions and fertile 
soil were drawing in immigrants by the thousands, and the 
colony was rapidly becoming first in trade, population, and 
good government. This condition might have continued 
longer had Governor Thomas been wise. 

In 1739 England declared war against Spain. The origin 
of the war did not remotely concern Pennsylvania. England 
had invaded Spain's West Indian possessions to cut logwood 
and gather salt, and Spain had claimed the right to search 
English boats. 

Before actual war. Governor Thomas sent to the house a 
message asking aid in defence. This body admitted in reply 
that the Quakers were now a minority of the province, 
though a large majority of the assembly. Yet they said, 

123 



124 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

''As very many of the inhabitants of this province are of 
the people called Quakers, who, though they do not as the 
world is now circumstanced, condemn the use of arms in 
others, yet are principled against it themselves, and to make 
any law against their consciences to bear arms would not 
only be to violate a fundamental in our constitution, and be 
a direct breach of our charter of privileges, but would also 
in effect be to commence persecution against all that part of 
the inhabitants of the province, and should a law be made 
which should compel others to bear arms and exempt that 
part of the inhabitants, as the greater number of this as- 
sembly are of like principles, would be an inconsistency 
with themselves, and partial with respect to others," etc. 

They, however, told the governor that he possessed dele- 
gated authority by the charter to raise a militia from such 
as wanted to enlist, and provide for the defence of the prov- 
ince. It would have been wise had the governor acted on 
this suggestion. Instead, he entered upon a warfare of 
words and argument, as if he could shake convictions which 
two generations of experience in administration had only 
strengthened. 

He reminded them that they represented a province, not 
a denomination, and that their views were inconsistent with 
government. He pointed out that William Penn had 
accepted commissions involving the use of the military. 
He deprecated any intention to invade their privileges or 
their consciences, but reminded them that no purity of heart 
or rectitude of intention, or soundness of religious belief 
would protect their coast against an enemy. As well might 
a seaman sleep through a storm without exerting himself, 
or a husbandman expect to reap without sowing, or watch- 
men be kept off the streets. They themselves were willing 
to use judges and juries and policemen to keep down burglars 
and law-breakers. He furthermore referred to the example 
of 1711, when the assembly voted two thousand pounds to 
the queen's use. 

The reply of the assembly called attention to their pro- 
tected condition, distant from the sea, surrounded by 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 125 

friendly colonies and friendly Indians, and to the fact that 
no war as yet existed. It differed from the governor in that 
it believed that iDurity of motive and religious consistency 
were protected by an Almighty God, who ruled the affairs 
of men. ' ^ Because we may lawfully build, plant, sow, or 
send ships to sea, or because it is necessary for a seaman to 
take care of a ship in a storm, that therefore it is consistent 
with Christianity to defend ourselves at the expense of the 
lives of our fellow-creatures, though our enemies, is not 
equally evident to us ; and yet if others think the argument 
forcible, such have their liberty.'' There is much differ- 
ence between shooting down a soldier in the opposite ranks, 
engaged in the performance of what he deems to be his duty, 
and executing a burglar Avho at the time of committing the 
deed is perfectly cognizant he is transgressing both human 
and divine law. As to William Penn's position, the reply 
says rather sarcastically, '^We presume he (the governor) 
has not been conversant with our first proprietor's writings. 
. . . He not only professed himself a Quaker and wrote in 
their form, but particularly against wars and fightings ;" and 
in regard to the grant of 1711 they^ay the governor (Gookin) 
kept it for his own particular use, which is ^' no great en- 
couragement for future assemblies to follow the example. '^ 

The reply, while undoubtedly able and convincing from 
the assembly's stand-point, had a vein of sarcasm and 
argumentation running through it of which even the best 
Quakers did not approve. When it came to an ethical 
and historical discussion they were evidently better pre- 
pared than the new governor, and it would have been well 
had he retired from the contest ; but it was maintained 
through several lengthy papers, until finally the governor 
in despair asked whether any one who held principles which 
prevented the defence of a state could properly take part in 
its government. 

In the mean time war was declared, and the governor 
renewed the request for an api>ropriation for troops, but, 
beyond an expression of willingness to do their duty ^'so 
far as our conscientious persuasion will permit," he got 



126 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

nothing? ])efore the assembly adjourned for harvest in 
1740. 

The governor by his own exertions raised a company of 
troops for three months. The ease with which this was 
done suggested a warlike population. As a matter of fact, 
many of the enlisted men were indentured servants, whose 
passage-money had been paid in advance, and who were 
willing to be excused by enlistment from working it out. 
When the house came together it very promptly appropri- 
ated three thousand pounds for the king's use, on the con- 
dition that all such servants should be discharged from the 
militia and no more enlisted. The governor could not well 
comply with this, and in wrath vetoed the grant. 

The people showed their approval of the assembly by 
re-electing the old one in 1740. Two thousand five hundred 
pounds were immediately appropriated to the payment of 
the masters of the enlisted servants, and, peace coming 
soon, the matter might have ended. But angry and un- 
necessary papers passed between governor and assembly. 
Thomas Penn supported his appointee, as did also the com- 
batant i)ortion of the community, the Episcopalians and 
Presbyterians, and the seeds of the party spirit, which con- 
tinued till the Eevolution, were being rapidly sown. 

The governor wrote an unfortunate letter to England, 
narrating the stubbornness of the Quakers, and advising 
that an oath be made a preliminary to all offices as the 
only way to exclude them from power. He also denounced 
them for the manufactures they were establishing, and for 
their principles as being repugnant to the foundations of 
government. The assembly's agent secured a copy of this 
letter and transmitted it to the province. Great was the 
indignation, and the culmination came in the election for 
assemblymen in 1742. 

The popular party had an overwhelming majority in the 
counties, hence, in common parlance, was ^'the country 
partj^" The governor, with 'Hhe gentleman's party," was 
strongest in the city. The excitement x)roduced a riot on 
election day in Philadelphia. A large number of Germans 




iENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 127 

came into town to vote for and support their friends, the 
Quakers. The governor's partj^ brought in from the ships 
in the harbor a body of seventy sailors. Ultimately the 
two parties came to blows ; the result of the street fight was 
that fifty of the sailors found themselves in jail, and the 
country party, led by Isaac ^N^orris, the son of William Penn's 
old friend, was triumphantly successful, electing the old 
members to a man. 

The affair resulted in an investigation by the assembly, 
by which it appears that the governor was the aggressor. 
That official now began to show signs of reconciliation. He 
sent a friendly address to the assembly and signed several 
bills which they had much at heart. His reward promptly 
came in an appropriation of fifteen hundred pounds for his 
salary. The three years' dispute ended in a complete vic- 
tory for the assembly. They had appropriated nothing for 
war. They had secured definite assui-ances of the governor's 
co-operation in the future, and they had been fully sustained 
by the country. The battle having been lost by the gov- 
ernor, he became tractable and respectful through the re- 
mainder of his course ; not exactly gaining the respect of 
the assembly, but being a useful agent of theirs in carrying 
out their plans 5 and great was his financial recompense. 
He found the i:)eople better employers than the proprietaries, 
and ultimately lost his place by yieldiug too much. 

Two men now began to come into prominence in the 
province. Isaac Norris, "the speaker," son of Isaac Norris, 
and grandson of Governor Thomas Lloyd might be expected 
to be a man of public spirit and usefulness. He was in the 
assembly for thirty years, for fifteen of which he was speaker. 
No man stood higher than he in public confidence. It was 
his boast, '^ ^o man shall stand on my grave and say, ^ Curse 
him : here lies he who betrayed the liberties of his country. ' ' ' 
It was he who suggested the inscription on the Liberty Bell, 
^'Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land and to all the In- 
habitants thereof" 

Benjamin Franklin, the other, came from Boston to Phil- 
adelphia in 1723, at the age of seventeen, with his pockets 



128 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

full of shirts and stockings, hungry, and utterly unknown, 
^' and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and 
about a shilling in copper." He dispensed the copper to the 
boat which had brought him down from Burlington, and out 
of the dollar bought three rolls, the size of which surprised 
liim, they were so much larger than Boston rolls. He ate 
them as he wandered the streets, and finding the crowd 
goiug to the Quaker meeting he followed and slept through 
the quiet hour. He soon made for himself a place, and, 
desiring to start a printing-house. Governor Keith induced 
him to go to England to buy his outfit, with a tacit promise, 
which the governor never fulfilled, that the young printer 
would have the official printing, and the public or some one 
should pay for the press. 

The first printer, William Bradford, the only member of 
his craft in the country outside of Boston, had come over in 
1685, but becoming involved in the Keith controversy, 
he left in 1693. Six years later the Friends brought over 
Eeynier Jansen. Others followed, and in 1712 Andrew 
Bradford, William's son, became the Philadelphia printer. 
When Franklin came he found besides Bradford's one other 
printing-house, Samuel Keimer's, and here he obtained 
work. 

In 1726 he returned from England, and three years later 
started the ''Pennsylvania Gazette," in opposition to Brad- 
ford's " Weekly Mercury." The same year he entered into 
the political arena by publishing the first of his many 
pamphlets. It was an argument in tiivor of paper money, 
urging a radical rather than a cautious adoption of the 
plan, which, if heeded, would probably have led to dis- 
astrous results. It was bright and plausible, and gave its 
writer a hold on the more poorly educated people of the 
city. From this time his weekly newspaper made him an 
ever-increasing i)ower. He was a consistent advocate of 
popular views all through the life of the anti-proprietary 
party, being a leading member, and was, except in the 
matter of war, a close political associate of the Quakers. 

A great many conferences with the Indians had been held 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 129 

since the historic one of 1683. Piece by piece the Indian 
land had been converted into blankets, ammunition, and 
playthings ; and foot by foot the red men had been retiring 
into western Pennsylvania. They were becoming more un- 
easy as they saw their hunting-grounds passing away, with 
nothing tangible or permanent in return. Yet, so long as 
the bargains were fair and open, as William Penn and 
James Logan had made them, there seemed to be nothing 
to say. The payment seemed ample in each case, and 
though the Indians were usually drunk either before or 
after the trade no advantages were taken of them. 

But with the advent of Thomas Penn as practical manager 
of affairs a different spirit began to prevail. This was 
first publicly manifested in the '^Walking Purchase" of 
1737, the history of which is as follows : — 

In a treaty in 1728 James Logan said that William Penn 
never allowed lands to be settled till purchased of the 
Indians. Ten years before he had shown to their chiefs 
deeds covering all lands from Duck Creek, in Delaware, to 
the '^ Forks of the Delaware," -'^ and extending back along 
the ^^Lechoy Hills" to the Susquehanna. The Indians 
admitted this and confirmed the deeds, but objected to the 
settlers crowding into the fertile lands within the forks 
occupied by the Minisink tribe of the Delaware Indians. 
Logan accordingly forbade any surveying in the Minisink 
country. White settlers, however, were not restrained, and 
the Indians became still more uneasy. A tract of ten 
thousand acres sold by the Penns, to be taken up anywhere 
in the unoccupied lands of the province, was chosen here 
and opened for settlement. A lottery was established by 
the proprietors, the successful tickets calling for amounts 
of land down to two hundred acres, and many of these were 
assigned in the Forks, without Indian consent. 

In order to secure undisputed possession and drive out 
the Delawares, who it must be remembered had always been 

* Between the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers, where Easton now 
stands. 

9 



130 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

more than friendly, a despicable artifice was resorted to, 
which will always disgrace the name of Thomas Penn. A 
deed of 1686, of doubtful authenticity, was produced, con- 
firming to William Penn a plot of ground beginning on the 
Delaware Eiver a short distance above Trenton, running 
^\'ost to Wrightstown, in Bucks County, thence northwest, 
parallel to the Delaware River as far as a man could walk 
in a day and a half, which was, no doabt, intended to ex- 
tend to the Lehigh Hills, thence eastward by an undefined 
line, left blank in the deed, presumably along the hills to 
the Delaware Eiver at Easton. It was one of numerous 
purchases of a similar character which, in the aggregate, 
conveyed to William Penn all southeastern Pennsylvania, 
and had, with his careful constructions, made no trouble. 
The walk, however, had never been taken, and in 1737 
the proprietors brought out the old agreement as a means 
of securing a title to the Minisink country. 

The route was surveyed, underbrush cleared away, horses 
stationed to convey the walkers across the rivers, two ath- 
letic young men trained for the purpose, and conveyances 
provided for their baggage and provisions. Indians at- 
tended at the beginning, but after repeatedly calling to the 
men to walk, not run, retired in disgust. Far from stop- 
ping at the Lehigh Hills, they covered about sixty miles 
and extended the line thirty miles beyond the Lehigh River. 
Then to crown the infamy, instead of running the northern 
line by sluj reasonable course they slanted it to the north- 
east and included all the Minisink country. It was a gross 
travesty on the original purchase, an outrageous fraud on 
the Indians, to which they very properly refused to submit. 
Tliey remained in their ancestral homes, and sent notice that 
they would resist removal by force. There, unfortunately, 
seems to be no doubt of the iniquity of the transaction. 
There is the testimony of at least two witnesses to the walk. 
It appears to have been a common subject of remark. In- 
different men treated it as sharp practice, and honest men 
were ashamed. But the proprietaries had a sort of a title 
to the fertile lands along the Delaware. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 131 

The outrage did not stop here. The proprietaries, prob- 
ably knowing the temper of the assembly, did not ask a 
military force to eject the Delawares. They applied to the 
Six Nations, who claimed all the Pennsylvania Indians as 
their subjects. In 1742 a conference was held in Philadel- 
phia, where a large number of the chiefs of the various 
tribes were present. Presents worth three hundred pounds 
were given to the Six Nations, and after hospitable entertain- 
ment of several days, after the manner of the times, they 
were brought into conference with their tributary chiefs, the 
governor, and his council. The Iroquois sachem, after 
saying he had judicially examined the deeds, pronounced 
judgment in favor of the whites, and turning to the Dela- 
wares, who apparently had nothing to say, addressed them : 
"Let this belt of wampum serve to chastise you; you 
ought to be taken by the hair of the head and shaken 
severely till you recover your senses." Then with the bit- 
terest taunts he proceeded : " But how came you to sell land 
at all ? We conquered you. We made women of you ; you 
know you are women, and can no more sell land than 
women. . . . For all these reasons we charge you to remove 
instantly. We don't give you liberty to think about it. 
You are women, take the advice of a wise man and remove 
immediately. ... We assign you two places to go to, 
Wyoming or Shamokin. You may go to either of these 
places and then we shall have you more under our eye and 
shall see how you behave. Don't deliberate, but remove 
away and take this belt of wampum." 

There was nothing for the Delawares to do but to obey. 
They saw that the league between the whites and the Six 
Nations was irresistible. They placed them in the same 
category of enemies and bided their time. If, in the Indian 
sense, they had been women, that is, peaceful and trustful, 
they were soon to show that the injury had made them 
capable of coping with their dreaded Iroquois oppressors, 
and of sending the white frontiersmen fleeing in terror to 
towns and forts. But the cup of their injurious treatment 
was not vet full. 



132 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The Six Nations, having completed their contract in re- 
moving the DelawareSj demanded a reciprocal favor. The 
lands along the Juniata River had never been purchased, 
and were claimed by these New York Indians as a part 
of their imperial domain. Moreover, they were valuable 
hunting-grounds. But the whites were pressing in, and the 
government of Pennsylvania was asked to clear them out. 
This request could not well be objected to, and an expedition 
was sent into the country which demanded the removal of 
the settlers and burned their buildings. The whites moved 
back as soon as the authorities were gone, and the old 
comx)laints were renewed. 

No doubt the French were continually fomenting the 
disturbances. By artfully promising the recovery of lands 
and giving presents to chiefs, they were welding together 
most of the Indians, except three nations of the Iroquois, 
into a confederacy against the English. The Pennsylva- 
nians, sensible of the danger, began to make counter-pres- 
ents, and here the Quaker assembly and the proprietaries 
joined hands. It was a fortunate season for such Indians 
as could take advantage of the competition, but in the 
nature of things could not last. 

We have anticipated our history so as to show the causes 
of many of the troubles which were to follow. 

War was declared between England and France in 1744. 
Governor Thomas renewed his military recommendations, 
but this time with caution. He worked outside the assem 
bly, and with the aid of Franklin, who was friendly with 
both sides, raised, it is said, ten thousand men. A lottery 
was projected to raise funds for a battery to defend the river. 
Logan, who did not share with his fellow- Quakers their ob- 
jections to defensive war and lotteries, and who had shortly 
before sent an address to the Yearly Meeting, advising 
Friends either to defend the state or withdraw from the 
government, was active in aiding this scheme. So were a 
number of other Friends, though, as after-events proved, 
the militant Quakers were a small minority. 

Governor Shirley of Massachusetts in 1745 conceived a 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 133 

plan for attacking the French forces in Lonisburg on Cape 
Breton. He secured the sanction of the English ministry, 
and a general call was made on the colonies for troops and 
money. The governor knew by this time that a bold request 
for war purposes would not be heeded by the assembly, and 
that body was aware that something must be done. They 
therefore adopted the " only expedient hitherto found to 
relieve the difficulties," and copied the example of the 
assembly of 1711. Reasserting their individual views in 
opposition to war they yet recognized a duty to support the 
government of the king. They therefore voted to grant four 
thousand pounds to trustees to be expended " in the pur- 
chase of bread, beef, pork, flour, wheat, or other grain, or 
any of them, within this province, and to be shijDped from 
hence for the king's service.'' According to Franklin, the 
governor construed "other grain" to mean gunpowder, and 
so expended a part of the appropriation. 

Louisburg fell after a two months' siege, but the war con- 
tinued. The Pennsylvania Indians, by English abuse and 
French intrigue, were becoming hostile. The Shawnees 
openly joined with the French, and some of the Six Nations 
hitherto devoted to the English interest, became doubtful. 
As yet they were neutral, and it required many presents to 
keej) them so. 

In 1746 aid was asked for another Canadian expedition, 
and the assembly voted five thousand pounds '^for the 
king's use." 

Governor Thomas resigned in 1746. Since yielding to 
the assembly' s wishes he had proved a successful governor, 
and his farther stay would have been acceptable. Anthony 
Palmer, the president of the council, acted as governor so 
far as legal requirements permitted, till in 1749 James 
Hamilton, the son of the late speaker, Andrew Hamilton, 
became lieutenant-governor. In the mean time peace with 
the French had come by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1748, though this was hardly regarded in America, and the 
French continued to seduce the Indians to their interest. 
They were much more su(;cessful than the English, and 



1;V4 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

when it was too late the Pennsylvanians found that expen- 
sive presents were necessary to regain their lost ground, 
and in this the council and assembly joined. 

From this time till the Eevolution there was a continual 
controversy between the assembly and the i)roprietaries 
touching questions of finance. The first of these related to 
payment for Indian presents. The assembly demanded that 
the Penns as private land-owners should pay at least part of 
this expense. This the proprietaries selfishly refused to do, 
alleging that other provincial governors were relieved of the 
expense, a comparison hardly fair, as other governors were 
simply political agents and not proprietors of the soil. 

The assembly sent them a formal remonstrance in 1751, 
and a series of lively letters passed, which resulted only in 
widening the breach and prei)aring for the larger contro- 
versy soon to come concerning the taxation of proprietary 
lands. 

Benjamin Franklin, who was elected to the assembly in 
1751, having been its clerk since 1736, was the author of the 
final reply. From this time he drafted almost all the state 
papers for the assembly. 

In 1751 that body sustained a severe loss in the death of 
John Kinsey, for ten years its speaker. He was a man of 
great intellectual and social gifts, and the last of the Quaker 
chief justices. He was succeded by Isaac Norris as speaker, 
and by William Allen as chief justice. 

James Logan also died in 1751. The controversies of his 
early life had passed away. As the leading man of the 
province, having held all its chief offices, he spent his later 
days in scholarly retirement at his place at Stenton, held in 
respect by all. He collected a great library, part of which 
he afterwards gave to the city of Philadelphia, and wrote 
books in Latin. He was a man who inspired trust in all 
with whom he came in contact, — in William Penn and his 
more exacting sons, in Franklin, who shared his political 
and scholarly Avork, and in the red men, who considered a 
conference incomplete without him. 

It was a striking commentary on the care with which 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 135 

paper money issues had been made, that in 1751, when the 
colonies in general were prohibited by the home government 
from issuing bills as a circulating medium, an exception 
was made of Pennsylvania. The assembly immediately 
took advantage of this liberty to enact further issues. The 
governor objected first because the amount was too large, 
then, when that was reduced, for other reasons. It became 
evident to the house that he was restricted by unpublished 
instructions from the proprietaries, and a new question of 
difference came to the front. Was the assembly to go on 
framing acts when all the time the governor was restrained 
from signing them — a fact which could only be ascertained 
by his actions after the bill reached him ? It was proper 
that his employers should give instructions. It had always 
been done. In earlier times these were usually confined to 
general directions to look after the interests of all, protect 
consciences, and some minor details. When the assembly 
asked to see them they were usually shown. The right of 
the governor to veto was recognized, so also was the right 
of the crown when the laws reached England in five years. 
But here seemed to be another veto, acting in advance, the 
nature and extent of which they could hardly determine. 
The question became in time one of the chief subjects of 
difference. 

In this case of the paper currency, Franklin, as chairman 
of a committee, drew up a long paper showing the beneficial 
effect of past issues. Comparing 1723 with 1752, he showed 
that the number of vessels clearing from the port of Phila- 
delphia had increased from eighty-five to four hundred and 
three, the imports from England from sixteen thousand 
pounds to one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, and the 
exports from about sixty thousand pounds to one hundred 
and ninety thousand pounds. The Indian trade had also 
increased, agriculture had been developed through the 
ability of purchasers to procure land without cash, yet with 
perfect security to the proprietaries, and the price of labor 
had been maintained, even though thirty thousand laborers 
had been imi)orted within twenty years. These advantages 



136 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

might Lave been greatly increased, the report stated, had 
the i)aper currency been more extensive. 

This report only produced more attemiDts to pass bills, 
more vetoes and explanations, and more bitter rejoinders 
from the house. The governor probably did the best he 
could, but his instructions tied him down, and he was under 
heavy bonds not to violate them. He himself remonstrated 
with Thomas Penn, without effect, and the result was a 
refusal to allow any money bill to be passed which did not 
I)lace the interest at the joint disposal of governor and 
assembly, instead of the assembly alone. This latter 
arrangement would, in the proprietary's eyes, render that 
body for a term of years too independent of himself and 
the crown. The assembly held tenaciously to the idea 
that the representatives of the people had control of the 
l)ul)lic revenue and expenditure, and refused to send in bills 
to meet the proprietary's views. Practically, therefore, 
nothing was done, and this condition might have existed 
much longer had not the exigencies of war demanded 
increased appropriations. The assembly, while undoubtedly 
right in principle, injured its cause by the rudeness and 
disrespect shown in its replies. 

The French still kept uptheir activity in the Ohio Yalley, 
on the claim that the land belonged to them by right of 
discovery. They held the ambitious project of connecting 
their provinces of Canada and Louisiana by a chain of forts, 
and of controlling all the intervening territory. Governor 
Dinwiddle of Virginia sent George Washington to ascertain 
their designs, which errand he accomplished in the dead of 
winter, 1753-4, and his report awakened the English govern- 
ment to a sense of the importance of the work before them. 

One of their first efforts produced results the reverse of 
their intentions. It was resolved to have representatives 
of all the colonies meet the Six :N"ations at Albany, and 
once for all buy and persuade them into allegiance. The 
Pennsylvania agents, John Penn and Robert Peters, were 
ent by the governor, and Norris and Franklin attended on 
behal f of the assembly. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 137 

From a political stand-point the conference of 1754 was not 
highly satisfactory to the English. The Six Nations were 
cold. Part of them afterwards j oined the French, who were 
better negotiators than the English, and more agreeable 
personally to the red men. This congress is memorable as 
being the first in which the colonies joined together for 
purposes of mutual support, and prepared the way for the 
great questions of the Eevolution. 

The Pennsylvania commissioners, when the public trea- 
ties were concluded, bought from the Iroquois, as lords of 
the soil, on behalf of the Penns, for four hundred pounds, 
all Western Pennsylvania south and west of a line from 
Shamokin to Lake Erie. Many charges were made after- 
wards with reference to this purchase ; the Indians were 
deceived by false maps ; some chiefs were privately bought^ 
many were not rei)resented ; they were told the sale 
was only to clear away the claims of the Connecticut people 
to the land, and so on. These may be true. It is certain 
that when the Pennsylvania Indians found that their whole 
domain had been sold without their consent, and without 
advantage to them, they felt it was the last act which, on 
top of the Walking Purchase and the forced removal from 
Delaware Valley, was an indication of a settled intention to 
drive them from their homes. They threw off all allegiance 
to the Six ]^ations, ceased to be ^^ women," and openly 
joined the French, who promised to restore them to their 
domains. They felt that the debt they owed to William 
Penn was cancelled, though they still held his memory in 
veneration, and never molested any Quakers who stood by 
their i)rinciples. All was in readiness for an Indian war as 
soon as a good excuse came, and this was not long delayed. 

It would not have been possible to have kept the whites 
off the Indian lands of Western Pennsylvania. But 
Thomas Penn made the great mistake of his life when he 
failed to approach the problem in the spirit of his father. 
It was difficult enough, and his efforts to solve it by cheat- 
ing drunken Indians and misconstruing ancient agreements, 
thus securing a sort of title to their lands, while, appar- 



138 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

ently, temporarily successful, brought on the inevitable 
harvest of misfortune. The Indians never broke treaties 
even when the future pTfoved that they had had the worst of 
them. It was the purpose of the assembly throughout to 
treat them fairly, to keep rum from them, and to buy their 
lands and trading privileges openly and liberally. Un- 
questionably their friendship could thus have been secured 
and the French would have coquetted with them in vain. 
The undisturbed frontier of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1755 
attests the success of this policy. The same causes would 
again have produced like effects. 

The French built a fort at the junction of the Monongahela 
and Allegheny Elvers in Pennsylvania territory, which 
they named Fort Du Quesne. Governor Hamilton urgently 
requested the assembly to provide him with funds to join 
with the Virginian exiDedition against this fort, but, giving 
various excuses, they did nothing. In the mean time the 
Virginian troops, afterwards reinforced with some from ^N'ew 
York and South Carolina, with Colonel Washington second 
in command, set out to attack the fort. The death of the 
commanding officer gave the chief place to Washington. 
After some successes he met a force of thrice the number 
of French and Indians in the ^' Great Meadows." Washing- 
ton built a stockade, ])ut was unable to stand the attack. At 
night he surrendered, marching off with the honors of war, 
and was thanked by the Virginian assembly for his courage 
and prudence. 

Again Governor Hamilton convened the assembly, and 
this time he would lirobably have received an appropriation 
had he not undertaken to amend the bill. The assembly 
resented his attack upon an established principle of English 
legislation, and again no money was granted. 

Hamilton became tired of his unfortunate position as the 
agent of the proprietaries, while, to a certain extent, sympa- 
thizing with the assembly. As a Pennsylvanian he desired 
to live in harmony with his fellow-citizens, and saw no other 
recourse than to give up his governorship. This he did in 
1751, and was succeeded by Eobert Hunter Morris. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 139 

One event of Governor Hamilton's time is important to 
be remembered, — the change in the calendar. In 1752 the 
year was made by Act of Parliament to begin on January 1, 
instead of March 20, so that the double dating between these 
days was no longer necessary. The ^' first month" of the 
Quakers now became January instead of March. Moreover, 
to correct the old discrepancy of the Julian Calendar be- 
tween the dates and the seasons, eleven days were cut out, 
and the next day after September 2 was to be September 14. 
The two systems were both used for a time, being designated 
by the letters O. S. and N. S.— old style and new style. 



CHAPTER IX. 

1754-1760. 

Governor Morris — Contest with the Assembly — Second War with 
France — Braddock's Campaign — Frontier Warfare — Parties — Tax- 
ing the Proprietaries — MiHtia Laws — Resignation of Quakers — In- 
dian Treaties — FrankHn sent to England — Governors Denny and 
Hamilton. 

The assembly in 1754 passed a bill for forty thousand 
pounds of paper money, half of which should go to the 
governor for the king's use. This liberal appropriation was 
vetoed because Morris had instructions to assent to no paper 
money bill which had not been previously submitted to the 
king, and which ran longer than five years. As this would 
have surrendered a precious privilege, the assembly again 
refused, and the contest became almost as bitter between 
governor and assembly as against the French. The repre- 
sentatives of the people, elected yearly, and therefore closely 
expressing the popular will, said that it was better to have 
some savages on the frontiers than sacrifice the essential 
principles of liberty. Each side blamed the other for the 
neglect to provide defence. 

In 1755 war between France and England was again de- 
clared. In anticipation of this, armies had been sent, by 
both parties to America, the British under Major-General 
Braddock. The legislative differences prevented any aid 
in money from Pennsylvania, but the assembly voted a 
post-road towards the Ohio, and provisions for the troops. 
Wagons and pack-horses were raised through the energy of 
Franklin, who was royal postmaster -general, so that, as 
Braddock admitted, Pennsylvania did as much for his ex- 
pedition as Virginia. The assembly repeatedly voted large 
sums, but the governor refused the conditions attached. 
Finally, the house, on its own credit, issued fifteen thousand 
140 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 141 

pounds, ten thousand of which were to be used to provision 
troops. 

The history of Braddock's campaign is well known. He 
had left word that he would either capture the garrison and 
equipment of Fort Du Quesne, or if, as he expected, the 
French should retreat and destroy the fort, he would rebuild 
and resupply it. Dragging his artillery over the Alleghany 
mountains and marching his troops with military precision, 
he made about three miles a day. His horses, without 
grass, weakened, and his men became sick as they trudged 
along through the endless forest. 

The Indians hovered about, picking off stragglers and, for 
the first time in the history of the i3rovince, scalping the 
frontier settlers. Washington finally prevailed upon Brad- 
dock to leave his artillery and press forward with twelve 
hundred men. 

It is probable that the current story of an intentional 
ambush by the French is not correct. Braddock pushed 
along in good discipline with scouts thrown out till he 
reached a ford of the Monongahela, seven miles from Fort 
Du Quesne. The French were alarmed and could hardly 
prevail on the Indians to go out to meet the English. 
Finally about nine hundred, mostly Indians, under the com- 
mand of Beaujeau, met Braddock' s army just after it had 
come out of the ford, a meeting hardly expected by either 
party. The British army in solid ranks went forward to 
the attack, and the Canadian French fled and were not seen 
again that day. The Indians, however, knew exactly what 
to do. They had the advantage of a high hill on one side, 
and each Indian, selecting a tree or a log for a cover, sent 
his deadly fire into the close ranks of the British. The dis- 
cipline of these regulars kept them in place as they fell side 
by side sending ineffectual volleys at the unseen enemy. 
Braddock did not shirk his duty, but exposed himself 
bravely as he encouraged his men, finally meeting death 
with his troops. Washington and his provincials protected 
the remnants of the fine army by fighting Indian fashion, 
and were themselves at one time fired upon by the regulars, 



142 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

who supposed them to be part of the enemy. Dunbar, who 
commanded the rear-guard, with the artillery and baggage, 
wlien the fugitives reached his camp, ingloriously took 
flight, destroyed his stores, and found safety in Philadelphia. 
The whole frontier was exposed to Indian attack. 

Led by French officers the Indians wreaked a bloody ven- 
geance on English settlers. From Maine to Carolina the 
massacres of quiet frontiersmen and their families, in the 
most cruel forms of Indian warfare, went on with a system 
which showed one guiding intelligence back of it, using 
savage instincts for its means. The hatred of the English, 
revenge for their aggressions, the hope of recovering terri- 
tory, and the pure love of war and rapine, sent into the 
hostile camp the old friends of Penn, the Delawares and 
Shawnees. A few Christian Indians, converted by the Mo- 
ravians, were faithful, and were massacred at Gnadenhutten. 
The Forks of the Delaware were revisited by the Minisinks, 
and payment in Indian fashion exacted for past abuses. The 
long years of peace had found the frontier totally without 
preparation, and the isolated settlements from Easton to the 
Maryland boundary were an easy prey to an enemy coming 
in the night, burning house and stable, and shooting the 
inmates as they escaped, or piercing the heart of the plough- 
man, or ravaging a school-house and scalping both master 
and children. 

The people came crowding eastward as fast as their means 
would carry them, crying for aid from the authorities. 
Almost every meeting of the council told of new murders, 
and heart-rending appeals for succor. During the fall of 
1755 conditions were at their worst. 

The house immediately voted fifty thousand pounds for 
the king's use, and as their favorite remedy, issues of paper 
money, was denied them, they directed that a tax be levied 
on all estates, real and personal, throughout the province, 
the proprietary estates not excepted. This the governor 
refused to accept, alleging the propriety and legality of 
exempting the estates of the Penns, which were now of 
immense value. In reply, the assembly distinguished be- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 143 

tween the official and private character of the proprietaries, 
and said that the private estates even of the king were 
taxed. They made an urgent plea to the governor for the 
sake of the common good to submit to this measure of 
justice. In their final address they say, ^^We are now to 
take our leave of the governor and, indeed, since he hopes 
no good from us nor we from him, ^tis time we should be 
parted. If our constituents disapprove of our conduct a 
few days will give them an opportunity of changing us by 
a new election." 

The question now went to the people in the midst of 
the public excitement caused by Indian massacres and the 
difference between the governor and assembly. Party lines 
were closely drawn. The proprietary party included the 
Episcopalians of the city of Philadelphia and the Presby- 
terians of the country. They demanded an unconditional 
appropriation by the house and a vigorous martial policy. 
In a general way their platform was the close limitation of 
paper money issues, the right of the proprietaries to tie up 
their governor by secret instructions, and the exemption of 
their estates from all taxation. The poi3ular party included 
the Quakers, now no longer divided, and the Germans. In 
the present state of affairs their representatives were willing 
to appropriate money for defence, but did not consider the 
exigency so great that the important liberties of the province 
and the control over revenue bills should be sacrificed. 
Many of the Quakers were absolutely pacific, some going 
so far as to object to the measures already taken and to be 
taken for the defence of the province. The Germans were 
also pacific, and they had a wholesome fear, brought from 
their fatherland, of military proscription and taxes. They 
were quite willing the Quakers should hold the offices, but 
the utmost exertions of the governor and his friends could 
not induce them to desert their party. The Quaker repre- 
sentatives were elected by the largest majorities ever known, 
twenty -six of the thirty six members being of that faith, 
and the remaining ten, including Franklin, in substantial 
sympathy with them in regard to most of the points at issue. 



144 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Thus strengthened by popular approval the assembly 
jn-opared a bill for granting sixty thousand pounds to the 
king's use in bills of credit, redeemable in four years by a 
tax on all estates. This embraced the proprietary domains, 
but enacted that should these be declared legally exempt 
the money was to be returned. Each party was afraid of 
some advantage for the other, and nothing was done till the 
pi'oprietaries in England, to stifle a clamor against them 
on both sides of the sea, donated five thousand pounds for 
purposes of defence. The assembly then completed the 
l)ill, making it fifty-five thousand pounds and exempting 
pi'ox^rietary estates. 

This money was largely spent in erecting and garrisoning 
a chain of forts along the Kittatinny hills, extending from 
tlie Delaware Eiver to the Maryland boundary. 

So far the assembly had preserved their privileges ; just 
elected by the people, they had grounds for saying, '^We 
have taken every step in our power consistent with the just 
rights of the freemen of Pennsylvania for their (frontiers- 
men's) relief, and we have reason to believe that in the 
midst of their distresses they themselves do not wish us to 
go further. Those who would give up essential liberty to 
Xmrchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty 
nor safety." 

They went further than any assembly before them had 
done, and enacted a militia law for those ^'willing and 
desirous" of bearing arms. It began with the declaration, 
^'Whereas this province was settled (and the majority of 
the assembly have ever since been) of the people called 
Quakers, who though they do not as the world is now 
circumstanced condemn the use of arms in others yet are 
principled against bearing arms themselves," and then 
proceeded to lay down the rules for the organization. 

In fact, the representatives went further than the stricter 
part of their constituency approved, and late in 1755 a 
petition came from the prominent Friends of Philadelphia 
expressing willingness to be taxed indefinitely for conciliat- 
ing the Indians, or to relieve distress, or other benevolent 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 145 

purposes, but objecting to paying war taxes, and indicat- 
ing an intention to refuse and take the consequences. The 
assembly received this with scant courtesy, and voted it 
^^an unadvised and indiscreet application to the house at 
this time." 

On the other hand, a strong petition, signed by many in- 
fluential men of the proprietary party, was sent to the king, 
setting forth the defenceless condition of the province, and 
charging it to the '^ majority of men whose principles are 
against bearing arms, who find means to thrust themselves 
into the assembly." They ask that such be kept out by 
the im]30sition of an oath. 

Indeed, the days of Quaker government were about over. 
The crisis came when the governor and council (William 
Logan, the son of James Logan, alone dissenting) declared 
war in the spring of 1756 against the Delawares and Shaw- 
nees, and offered rewards for the scalps of men and women 
Indians. The position of the Friends had been difficult be- 
fore, but to be a part of a government openly at war was a 
step too far. Six of them resigned from the assembly, and 
were succeeded by those of other denominations. Their 
meetings, encouraged by advice from London Friends, 
brought great pressure to bear on the other representatives 
to follow the same course. Several refused re-election in 
October, 1756, and four others resigned after the house was 
organized, leaving only twelve Quakers in the assembly. 

While this number was increased occasionally in the fol- 
lowing twenty years, it never amounted to a controlling 
majority. The Meetings steadily discouraged their mem- 
bers holding office. Besides those offices that involved 
administering oaths and those that necessitated voting war 
taxes, there were but few left. The year 1756 marks the 
final loss of control of the assembly of the province founded 
by their great leader, and which they had managed with 
large success for seventy- four years. 

But while theperson7iel of the assembly changed, its policy, 
save in the matter of rather more freedom in voting appro- 
priations for military measures, did not. The same issues 

10 



146 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

were fought, mostly to a satisfactory conclusion, under the 
leadership of Franklin. The same voters sustained the 
party leaders at the polls, and the anti-proprietary feel- 
ing did not slumber in the years to come. In common 
speech there was still the '^ Quaker assembly," dictated 
largely by Quaker sentiment till the Eevolution destroyed 
all the old landmarks. References of this kind are common 
in histories of the times, but if it was Quaker policy, its 
chief actors were found outside the Society of Friends, 
which through its constituted authorities most strenuously 
strove, and in the main successfully, to keep its members 
out of office. 

By the summer of 1756 the alarm in Pennsylvania had 
somewhat subsided. It was seen that there was not much 
danger from the French. The forts and the volunteers had 
somewhat reassured the people, and efforts were set on foot 
to placate the Delawares and Shawnees. The Friends formed 
the '^Friendly Association, '^ agreeing to pay in the interests 
of peace ^'more than the heaviest taxes of a war can be 
expected to require." The governor considered them im- 
pertinent, but at a conference in Easton in 1756, as well as 
in succeeding ones, they performed valuable service. They 
succeeded to a large extent in regaining the confidence of 
the Indians, and became a valuable go-between in the 
negotiations, concluding the treaty by valuable presents 
which left the Indians in a good humor. They went off 
with the intention of bringing others into the league. The 
great leader, Tedyuscung, who at Easton had asserted, 
stamping his feet on the ground whence his tribe had been 
driven, ^'The very ground on which we stand was dis- 
honestly taken from us," became a Christian, and exerted 
his influence for i>eace. 

In order to secure the alliance of the Ohio Indians, the 
Association sent Christian Frederick Post, a heroic Mora- 
vian, who had lived among them, on an unarmed mission. 
Under the guns of Fort Du Quesne, against the influence 
of the French, who had set a price upon his head, he suc- 
ceeded in persuading them to give up the war. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 147 

Another and larger conference was held at Easton in 1757. 
Three hundred chiefs were x)resent. All complaints were 
heard. The Albany purchase was atoned for^ and even the 
Walking Purchase was tacitly admitted to be wrong. A 
peace was made, and wampum belts exchanged in great 
profusion. Post again went west, and, in spite of French 
opposition, the other tribes entered into the compact. 

In the mean time a force of English soldiers under General 
Forbes was marching towards the contested fort. A detach- 
ment pressed ahead to a hill in the present city of Pittsburg 
overlooking the fort. The French attacked them, and 
again their skill in Indian fighting overcame the British 
regulars, two hundred and seventy men were killed, and 
the rest retreated. A few weeks after, the main body 
advanced in overwhelming numbers, and the French, who 
were really very weak from the detachment of their Indian 
allies, abandoned the fort, burning it and its perishable 
equipment, and throwing the cannon into the river. Fort 
Du Quesne was no more. When rebuilt it became Fort 
Pitt. 

While this for the time practically ended serious war in 
Pennsylvania, it was not till the energy and resources of 
William Pitt were placed at the head of the English gov- 
ernment that peace could be secured. Wolfe brilliantly 
took Quebec and lost his life in 1759, the next year Montreal 
fell, and the French Canadian empire was at an end. 

The anti- proprietary feeling in the country was so bitter 
that the assembly, finding there was no prospect of relief 
from the secret instructions, the exemption of parliament- 
ary estates from taxation, the restrictions on i)aper money 
issues, and the claims for a share in disbursing all money 
raised by taxation, determined to appeal against the pro- 
prietaries to the crown. In 1757 Norris and Franklin were 
appointed commissioners, but Norris declined and Franklin 
went alone. He was already famous for his scientific studies 
and his political influence in the colony, and this was the 
beginning of his diplomatic career. 

Another illustration of the partisan feeling of the times 



148 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

is round in the treatment of William Smith, the provost 
of the College of Philadelphia. William Moore, judge 
of Chester County, had numerous charges of misconduct 
})rought against him, and the assembly summoned him to 
appear and answer them. He denied its right to investi- 
gate the case, and refused to appear. Upon this they pro- 
ceeded to examine him in his absence, pronounced him 
guilty, and requested the governor to remove him. Moore 
printed a reply, violently attacking the house, and this 
replj' was said to have been written by the provost. 

The tone of the x>ai)er was unquestionably disrespectful, 
reflecting, probably unjustly and falsely, upon the motives 
and acts of the assembly and its members ; but when for this 
they sent the provost to prison without bail, and gave him 
the opportunity^ to make a brilliant and dramatic defence, 
greatly to the delight of his friends, they committed an im- 
politic as well as an unjustifiable act. The matter was 
made worse by being taken up by succeeding houses, which 
stretched their prerogatives by again imprisoning him. 
Finally, in 1758, Smith appealed to the king in council, 
where he was triumphantly sustained and the assembly re- 
l)uked for the assumption of improper powers. For this 
neither did the assembly care, nor the people, who returned 
nearly all of them at the next election. 

Governor Morris, who had earned, partly by his un- 
foi^tunate position and partly by his own follj, the great 
dislike of the people, was suj^erseded in 1756, by William 
Denny. The new governor was received by the popular 
party with high hopes of better things 5 but, tied down 
by his bond and his secret instructions, he could not do 
much better than Morris except by showing a better temper, 
and this was not perceptibly an improvement. In 1757, 
Isaac Norris, elected for many years unanimously as 
speaker of the assembly, was forced to decline on account 
of ill health. 

In August, 1757, Franklin began his work in England by a 
remonstrance addressed to the proprietaries. He probably 
did not expect this to have direct effect, but desired to place 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 149 

himself on record as being refused by the proper authorities 
before appealing to the higher. This brought out, eighteen 
months later, a letter to the assembly in which the proprie- 
taries reasserted their rights in all the points at issue. In 
reply, that body sent to the governor a bill subjecting the 
proprietary estates with other property to taxation, which 
the governor signed, giving as a reason that the critical 
condition of the province demanded the sacrifice. 

To aid in the creation of i^ublic opinion in England, 
Franklin wrote, or had written, a ''Historical Eeview of 
Pennsylvania." It was a partisan document, filled with the 
complaints of the assembly at the worst times, drawn from 
its proceedings under Evans, Morris, and the most blunder- 
ing governors. The book has been often referred to as an 
historical authority, but its intense one-si dedness should be 
borne in mind. It was written to be effective, and, like all 
of Franklin's works, accomplished its end. 

When the tax bill came to England, Franklin and the 
proprietaries were heard before the Privy Council. The 
agent of the assembly conducted the case with great skill 
and power, and having consented to enter into an engage- 
ment that the proprietary estates should be fairly treated in 
their assessment, that the unlocated grounds should not be 
taxed, and that the governor's consent should be made 
necessary to the application of all money raised under the 
act, the decision was in his favor and the bill received royal 
sanction. 

The amount paid by the proprietaries was small, and the 
house secured Franklin in his engagements, which were 
fairly carried out. But the proprietaries were beaten, and 
their tendency to encroach on popular liberties had received 
a severe check. Franklin was the hero of the day, and was 
made the agent of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia, 
as well as of Pennsylvania. 

The result came about through Governor Denny's willing- 
ness to disobey instructions, and this willingness is ac- 
counted for in the following minute of the house : ''The 
governor, by Mr. Secretary, sent down the supply bill with 



150 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

a verbal message that his Honor will pass the same. . . . 
The House then taking into consideration the Governor's 
support . . . resolved that the sum of £1000 be allowed^ 
and given to the Honorable William Denny, Esq., Lieuten- 
ant-Governor of this province for his support for the cur- 
rent year." He received a like sum soon after for signing a 
bill issuing i^aper money. Denny was a spendthrift, and 
was reduced to financial straits, and, though under bond of 
five thousand pounds to obey the proi)rietaries' instructions, 
he found the maintenance of his official standing without 
salary so inconvenient that he took the risks and had his 
reward from the assembly. He was immediately dis- 
charged by his employers and an attempt was made to sue 
out his bond, but this was given up and James Hamilton 
was persuaded to take his place. This was in October, 1759. 



CHAPTEE X. 

1760-1764. 

Pontiac's Conspiracy — Bouquet's Campaign — John Penn — Murder of 
Conestoga Indians — Paxton Eiot — Dislike of the Proprietaries — 
Agitation for a Crown Colony — John Dickinson — Joseph Galloway. 

In making the usual military appropriation of 1760 the 
house coupled it withi conditions taxing the proprietary 
estates and retainiog the control of expenditure. Governor 
Hamilton objected, but the house remaining firm, lie finally 
signed, protesting that the circumstances of the state ex- 
torted his assent. 

Notwithstanding the great expenses, Pennsylvania was 
now in easy financial circumstances. She received from the 
crown an approi)riation of twenty-six thousand pounds for 
her share of money advanced for the general defence, and 
felt herself rich enough to make a generous contribution to 
Boston, for sufferings caused by a great fire. 

AYhile the French were conquered in America in 1760, 
and their army transported to France, it was not till 
November, 1762, that peace was declared, and not till the 
following year that the treaty of Paris definitely gave 
Canada to the British crown. The colonists now looked for 
peace. The French were no more, and the Indians were 
either conquered or bought. The settlers again pushed out 
into the woods, and sounds of civilization were heard in 
the deserted clearings. There was, however, to be another 
Indian war. 

Pontiac was the chief of the Ottawas, who inhabited the 
shores of the great lakes. He was now about forty years 
old, and had been the ally of the French in command of his 
tribe against Braddock and other English commanders. 
When the French were beaten he refused to acknowledge 
defeat, and in 1762 held a great council of Indian tribes. 

151 



152 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

He had received, lie said, a tradition which was to be held 
sacred. Indiaas were no more to depend on the whites, they 
were to use no more white implements, and drink no more 
whiskey. The English were the great enemies and, were to 
be cut off by a general and unexpected movement against 
them. The red-stained tomahawk and the wampum war- 
belt were borne by messengers to all the tribes from Ottawa 
to the lower Mississippi, and it was agreed that by June, 1763, 
there should be war along the whole frontier. The plan 
was conceived with secrecy and with statesmanlike skill, and 
the attack was made on unsuspecting garrisons. Eight of 
the twelve outlying forts attacked were taken, and scalping 
parties ravaged the whole border. Settlers were killed and 
settlements burned and levelled. The orders were to make 
complete destruction, and in Pennsylvania, all west of the 
Susquehanna, except a few fortified places, was given over 
to them, the inhabitants flying eastward. The fugitives 
crowded the towns and every available place. They were 
without food, and were relieved by the charitable efforts 
of the Philadelphians. 

Fort Pitt was one of the few frontier forts which held out. 
It was surrounded by a howling mob of savages, fortunately 
without implements of siege, but settling down with steady 
purpose to dig trenches and pick off or starve out the gar- 
rison. The fort was strong and well provisioned, and the 
knowledge of the fate in store for them in case of capture 
nerved the soldiers to their best efforts. 

In the mean time Colonel Henry Bouquet started with 
five hundred regulars, just returned from the West Indies, 
and infii-m with disease, from Carlisle to the rescue. The 
Indians, outnumbering them many fold, marched east to 
meet them, and Brad dock's defeat seemed about to be 
repeated. 

As Bouquet approached the fatal field, the Indians at- 
tacked ; from front, side, and rear came the secret fire. He 
drew his men into a circle and saw them falling about him. 
But he was a better general than Braddock. Feigning a 
retreat with part of his force, the Indians came out of their 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 153 

hiding-places to attack the weakened lines. The retreating 
companies circled around and fell on the Indian flank. The 
savages fled past the fort shaking their bloody tro]3hies 
in the faces of the garrison, and Fort Pitt was relieved. 
Bouquet was the hero of the day. 

The feeling against the Indians as a result of this outbreak 
was exceptionally bitter. The sufferers on the frontier and 
their friends, goaded to fury by the savagery they saw and 
heard of, demanded the utter destruction of the red men. 
Some of their ministers went so far as to say that the wars in- 
dicated the Divine displeasure for the treaties made by the 
government. They took to themselves the command given 
to the Israelites '' to utterly destroy" the races inhabiting the 
land. These frontiersmen were largely Presbyterian from 
the north of Ireland, a vigorous and militant peoi^le, the 
very antii)odes of the Quakers. Their vengeance produced 
most unfortunate results. 

In 1763 John Penn, the son of Eichard, was made lieu- 
tenant-governor. Among the many addresses congratulating 
him on his accession was one from the remnants of the tribe 
of Conestoga Indians. These were the descendants of a 
once powerful nation, which had met William Penn when 
he first landed and had made a treaty with him. He had 
allowed them to live on one of his manors in Lancaster 
County, and since then they had been to some extent pen- 
sioners of the government. They had fallen victims to 
white vices and diseases, and the little company which 
addressed John Penn now numbered only twenty Indians, 
six of them men, the others women and children. They 
had so far departed from Indian ways as to gain their living 
by making brooms and baskets, and peddling them among 
the farm-houses. One of them had been charged with 
murder, and it was suspected that they had given informa- 
tion to more martial Indians. These accusations were not 
proven, and they were generally considered by their German 
neighbors to be harmless and worthless. 

In the general excitement, the people of Paxton and Done- 
gal, near the present Harrisburg, undertook to begin the 



154 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

extermination with these Conestoga Indians. Their pastor, 
John Ekler, who had many a time preaclied to them, rifle in 
tlie pulpit. x)laced himself in their way and besought them 
to stop, hut brushing him aside, fifty-seven of them came to 
the manor and wreaked their fatal vengeance on three men, 
two women, and a boy, who were all they found at home. 
The other fourteen were out selling brooms, and were con- 
veyed by friends to the Lancaster jail for protection. 

The '^Paxton Boys," as they are called, rode in full day- 
light into Lancaster, crushed down the doors of the jail, and 
with their hatchets slaughtered the rest of the tribe. Then, 
without disguise, they mounted and rode away. 

There was much excitement in the eastern counties. 
Governor Penn issued proclamations, calling on magistrates 
to arrest the murderers. Franklin, just returned from his 
successful mission to England, and stronger than ever in 
pojuilar estimation, wrote a '' Narrative" which, with min- 
gled indignation and sarcasm, told of the ancient treaties 
to which these Indians had but just repledged themselves 
to the grandson of William Penn, and the brave work of the 
rangers who, while professing to be doing God's commands, 
had murdered women and children. 

But while Franklin could win admiration in Philadel- 
phia, the neighbors of the culprits were in entire sympathy 
with them, and no magistrate dared issue a warrant. It 
was known who constituted the partj", but no judicial action 
was ever taken. 

Emboldened by immunity they concluded to carry their 
operations into the enemy's country. A band of one hun- 
dred and fjrty Moravian Indians had been brought into 
Philadelphia. This was done partly for their own safety 
and partly because it was feared they would join their hos- 
tile brethren. To make them still more secure they were 
sent on to New York, but the governor there refusing to re- 
ceive them, they had to be brought back. They were 
placed in barracks in the northern part of the city and their 
wants supplied by the Quakers. 

A body of two hundred or three hundred frontiersmen, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 155 

magnified by accounts into five times the number, took up 
their march to Philadelphia with the avowed intention to 
kill the Indians, and the Quakers also should that pacific 
sect stand in the way. Israel Pemberton, the head of the 
Friendly Association, was selected for special punishment, 
and left the city. They had grievances formulated in their 
meetings which they also intended to present to the author- 
ities. Quickly marching to the Schuylkill and finding all 
boats removed and the river swollen by the rains, they 
went up to the present Norristown and followed down the 
left bank of the river, stopping at Germantown. 

The governor called on the inhabitants to arm and j)rotect 
their houses and the Indians. Thousands of them re- 
sponded, and in a February rain-storm camped around the 
barracks. The court-house and other public buildings, and 
even the great Friends' meeting-house, were opened for their 
reception, and through two nights they awaited the attack. 

At one time they thought it was coming. A body of 
troops were marching down Second Street. Every soldier 
was ready to fire, when the supposed attacking party proved 
to be Germans coming in to assist in the defence. 

The governor sent Franklin to the camp of the rioters to 
ascertain their demands and attempt a settlement. They 
drew up a pai3er in such good form as to prove they were 
not all ignorant backwoodsmen, and presented a number of 
grievances on behalf of themselves and the border counties. 
They complained of the unequal representation in the as- 
sembly, the three old counties having twenty-six of the 
thirty-six members apportioned to them, which, with the 
present population, was unjust ; that there was a proposi- 
tion to try the Conestoga murderers outside Lancaster 
Count}^ ; that the hundreds of families reduced to distress by 
the border warfare were neglected, while the band of Indians, 
themselves allied with the cruel perpetrators of the out- 
rages, was fed in the city ; that war in general was against 
a whole nation, and no part of the Indians should be secured 
from attack ; that it was unsafe to allow any Indians to live 
in the inhabited parts of the province, for all alike were 



156 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

perfidious ; that the rewards for scalps had been withdrawn, 
''which damped the spirits of many brave men who were 
willing to venture their lives against the enemy." 

Having thus formulated their grievances and found that 
the whole city was in arms against them, they disbanded 
and went home. A company of them rode through the 
streets to see the town, and the citizen soldiers, partly scat- 
tered, again rushed to arms. Thus the whole matter ended 
in a fiasco. 

Among the volunteers on this occasion were about two 
hundred Quakers, mostly young men, who, in the excite- 
ment of the time, took uj) arms to defend their elder brethren, 
their Indian dependents, and the peace of the city. This 
opened one of the greatest pamphlet wars the province had 
seen. There were evidently many in the city who sj^mpa- 
thized with the Paxton demands, and while not showing 
themselves during the disturbance, they came forward after- 
wards with apologies and explanations, combined with 
attacks upon the Quakers. This body, they said, held 
principles oj)posed to government. The honest ones recog- 
nized this and took no part. But that their pacific principles 
were hypocritical was shown by their loan of the meeting- 
house and their activity in military defence whenever trial 
came. Some pamphlets were scurrilous, and indicated venal 
or immoral reasons for the Quaker liking of the Indians. 

The Quakers themselves did not write, but they found 
]3lenty of defenders who claimed that the Indians were 
quiet enough when properly treated ; that the Presbyterians 
had improperly taken their lands and were continually 
fomenting trouble along the borders. From this the dis- 
cussion went into the evils and merits of those two bodies, 
at that time so diverse in their theology, their habits, 
and their manner of looking at public questions, the Pres- 
byterian and the Quaker. 

A third party, led by Franklin, also sent out its broad- 
sides. The writers were not peace men, but in this dis- 
turbance they had no words strong enough to condemn the 
murderers of the peaceful Conestogas, and the attack upon 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 157 

Philadelphia, acts which would bring disgrace on the 
province and could not possibly be defended. 

The outcome of the ^^ Paxton Eiots/' as they have become 
known in history, was the granting of only one of the de- 
mands, and this was, strange to say, the renewal of the 
rewards for scalps for male and female Indians, truly an 
anomalous bounty from the grandson of William Penn. 

The rioters settled back into their homes, the Quakers 
gently disciplined their unfaithful members, men felt their 
minds relieved by the war of pamphlets, but many private 
letters as well as i)ublic documents still attest the deep ex- 
citement of those bitter February days. Another question, 
not dissociated but of larger import, now arose to demand 
the best thoughts of all. 

John Penn was received hj the people with all outward 
marks of resi^ect. Public and religious bodies sent their 
congratulations, and a severe shock of earthquake on the 
day of his landing was nature's welcome. Back of these 
formal ceremonies there was a real expectation that a mem- 
ber of the Penn family would be relieved of some of the 
instructions which had vexed other governors, and that the 
assembly could live in some harmony with him. 

These hopes were soon dispelled. It was recognized now 
that proprietary lands should be taxed. In order to avoid 
discrimination against them it had been decided in 1757 that 
these lands should be assessed at the lowest rate of the un- 
cultivated lands of other owners. When a bill for raising 
fifty thousand pounds to supi)ort Colonel Bouquet's expe- 
dition was prepared, it was passed by the assembly with 
alacrity. The governor insisted that in making provisions 
for this collection the agreement of 1757 should be construed 
to mean that the Penn lands, no matter what their value, 
should pay no heavier taxes than the lowest of all other 
lands. The assembly, with more show of reason, explained 
the agreement as saying that the Penn lands should be as- 
sessed with the lowest lands of their class. All other lands 
were classified, and they thought that the proprietary lands 
should come under the same arrangement. The exigencies 



158 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

of the case demanded some one to surrender, and the as- 
sembly gave up. It was a petty demand of the proprietaries, 
and the small amount saved did not nearlj^ compensate for 
the loss of respect and influence which followed, ^o one 
exi:)ected the golden days to come after this, and party lines 
were more strenuous than ever. 

There seemed to be no recourse for the j^eople from the 
exasperating opposition of the proprietaries but to attempt 
to have Pennsylvania made a crown colony and her gov- 
ernment taken away from the Penn family. This project 
was now cautiously broached in the assembly. In order to 
ascertain whether it had the support of the people the 
assembly decided to issue an address, setting forth the evils 
of proprietary rule, and then to adjourn to consult their 
constituents. 

The address asserted that the proprietaries, so far as they 
were land-owners, were legally like other owners, and they 
had no right to use their powers in the government to pro- 
tect their private interests. It was high presumption for 
any citizen to interfere in government affairs between crown 
and people, and by secret instructions and penal bonds 
attempt to force legislation. The assembly had been most 
liberal in appropriations, and in return the present pro- 
prietaries had consistently endeavored to curtail the liber- 
ties which their father had granted. They had multijDlied 
dram shops unduly to enjoy the increased revenues from 
licenses. They had reserved large tracts of the best lands 
for future markets, and this explained the sparse frontier 
settlements and their defenceless condition. Notwithstand- 
ing these peculiar privileges they still demanded release 
from taxation, and took advantage of the necessities of the 
province to enforce their pecuniary demands. The appoint- 
ment of judges and the whole executive administration 
being in their hands, combined with their vast estates, they 
would in time become a power, dangerous alike to the pre- 
rogatives of the crown and the liberties of the people. 
Hence, the address concluded, the powers of government 
should be separated from the ownership of this immense 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 159 

private property and safely placed in the hands of the 
king. 

This address was unanimously adopted, and the assembly 
adjourned to consult the people ^^ whether a humble address 
should be drawn up and transmitted to his majesty, praying 
that he would be graciously pleased to take the people of 
this province under his immediate protection and govern- 
ment by completing the agreement heretofore made with 
the first proprietor for the sale of the government to the 
crown or otherwise, as to his goodness and wisdom should 
seem meet." 

The petitions which this address drew out were all in 
favor of the change. The other party hardly seemed alive 
to the issue. The assembly on meeting therefore resolved 
to proceed and adopted an address to the king, speaking 
of the recent riots and their probable continuance, and 
asking the king to make j)roper compensation to the jiro- 
I^rietaries and resume the government of the province. 

The appearance of this address immediately crystallized 
parties. The Episcopalians, who in early days, under 
Quarry, considered a crown colony the acme of their desires, 
now. opposed the movement. They had what they wanted, 
for the Penns, now members of their church, filled all the 
executive and judicial positions with their representatives. 
The Presbyterians were opposed to it because the proprie- 
tary cause had meant vigorous warfare against Indians 
and French, and because they were assumed to be respon- 
sible for the riots complained of, and because a crown 
colony meant the end of the liberties they had enjoyed 
under the Penn charter. The Quakers were divided. 
Most of them entered into the plan heartily, and were 
Franklin's main supporters. A few of the older and 
steadier members, like Isaac Norris, who resigned the 
speakership rather than sign the address, saw that it meant 
the death of the venerable charter and possibly an estab- 
lished church, and were disposed to combat a while longer 
the proi)rietary evils. The Germans, as usual, sided with 
the Quakers. 



lj;0 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

1 11 the discussion in the assembly two men whose future 
careers were imi^ortant factors in history were prominent 
exponents of tlie two sides. 

John Dickinson was perhaps the most influential Ameri- 
can through the pre-revolutionary days. He was the son of 
a planter whose home was on the eastern shore of Maryland. 
The father was desirous that his son should be well educated, 
and i)artly for this purj^ose bought a large estate near Dover, 
Delaware, when John was eight years old. Here he became 
judge of the county court and a man of prominence. For 
the next ten years the boy was under the care of a tutor 
who filled his mind with high ideals and aided him to 
secure an English style remarkably simple, elegant, and 
effective, which no one of his day, except, perhaps, Franklin, 
equalled, and which made him easily the '^Penman of the 
Eevolution." 

Ten years of close legal and historical study followed in 
the Philadelphia office of the first lawyer of the day, in 
the Inns of Court of London, and again in his own modest 
start at i:>ractice in Philadelphia. His well-trained and 
logical mind, his conservative and orderly tendencies, and 
his Quaker associations made him a valuable recruit to the 
cause of moderate resistance which was to characterize the 
Pennsylvania colonists. 

His interests were political rather than legal, and for a 
political career he had equipi^ed himself by a painstaking 
preparation in historical and logical study. In 1760 he was 
made a member of the Delaware Assembly, and two years 
later, at the age of thirty, of that of Pennsylvania. 

It required not a little fortitude for this young student of 
law, with his fortune to make, to come out on the unpopular 
side. In an elegant and cogent si)eech he made not a de- 
fence of the proprietaries, whose conduct he admitted to be 
indefensible, but a plea against the worse evils of royal gov- 
ernment to which the people were exposing themselves. He 
pleaded for the old charter and the liberties it gave them, 
and asked if in any of the royal colonies there w^as much real 
freedom. He hinted at a possible church establishment and 




JOHN DICKINSON. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 161 

a standing army, and pertinently asked whether the crown 
had not supported the proprietaries in their worst claims. 
"In seeking a precarious, hasty, violent remedy for the 
present partial disorder we are sure of exposing the whole 
body to danger." 

Few would say in the light of following events that Dick- 
inson was wrong. The proprietaries were better masters 
than the king would have been, but the assembly was guided 
by present feelings. Its position was expressed by the gen- 
tleman who was to make the reply to the effective argument 
just delivered. 

Joseph Galloway was also a native of Maryland, and had 
come to Philadelphia to practise law, in which he was emi- 
nently successful. He was learned, rich, and conservative ; 
and till his espousal of the British side in the Eevolution 
drove him from the country, an influential citizen. His 
argument was devoted to showing that neither policy nor 
character would be likely to induce such a king as George 
III. and such a parliament as the English Parliament to do 
anything to destroy the liberties of the province. Colonial 
success in the future would be dependent on the proper 
treatment of existing colonies. The king was a good king, 
and the parliament a just and friendly parliament. 

The two speeches were issued for popular consumption. 
Dickinson's introduction was written by Provost Smith, and 
Galloway's by Franklin. 

When the vote was taken only three assemblymen stood 
with Dickinson. 

The election of 1764 was fought out on this issue. The 
proprietary party rallied all its forces and defeated Frank- 
lin and Samuel Ehoads in the city of Philadelphia, by the 
narrow margin of twenty-five votes in four thousand polled, 
and Galloway also lost his place. On the other side, Dickin- 
son was defeated, and did not return till 1770, when events 
had vindicated his position. On the whole, a slight gain 
of votes was made by the proprietary party, though they 
still had not more than one-third the assembly. Franklin, 
though bitterly opposed by them, was made agent to present 

11 



162 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the subject to the king aud his advisers, and immediately 
sailed to England. 

In the mean time party spirit had cooled ; the wisdom of 
the movement became a matter of doubt in the minds of 
sober men. Quakers recovered their veneration for the old 
charter, and finally the assembly directed Franklin to move 
cautiously and to secure all proper liberties to the people 
before making the transfer. Indeed, they authorized him 
not to present the matter at all if circumstances seemed 
unfavorable. 

The resolutions never passed out of Franklin's hands. 
When he reached England every one was talking of the 
Stamp Act. It was no time to enlarge the powers of the 
crown. Though succeeding assemblies endorsed the change, 
there was no serious complaint that their agent did not press 
the business to success. The events which followed in rapid 
succession drove it from the public mind. 



CHAPTER XL 

1764-1776. 

Union of the Colonies — English Aggression — The Stamp Act — Stamp- 
Act Congress — Writings of Dickinson — Xon-importation — Paul 
Revere' s Mission — Joseph Reed — Charles Thomson — Thomas Mifflin 
— First Continental Congress — Franklin comes Home — Governor 
Penn — Second Continental Congress — Sentiment of Pennsylvania — 
Position of the Quakers — Agitation for Independence — Articles of 
Confederation — Reorganization of the Government of Pennsyl- 
vania — Declaration of Independence — Death of Penn's Charter. 

We now approach the series of events which directly 
led to the American Revolution. There was as yet no sen- 
timent for independence. It required ten years of unwise 
exactions on the part of England to develop this. During 
this time the lesson was being learned that each colony 
could not be as it had been since the settlement, a separate 
government, working out its own internal problems. Com- 
munity of interests was fused by English attacks upon all 
alike, and the necessity for union against a common enemy. 

There were various forms of government in the colonies. 
In Pennsylvania and Maryland the governors were ap- 
pointed by the proprietaries ; in Rhode Island and Connec- 
ticut elected by the people ; in all the others appointed by 
the crown. But in all cases the thoughts of the people 
were free ; they had developed a system of local self-govern- 
ment to which they strongly held, and their legislative 
bodies were really representative of the people. They were 
not inclined to yield one iota of their privileges, and on 
this point the Puritan of New England, the Quaker of 
Pennsylvania, and the Churchman and Huguenot of the 
South were willing to join hands ; but all conceived that 
an overthrow of an English ministry, and a revolution in 
the thoughts of the English people and the English throne, 
would be the only revolutions needed. 

163 



ie,4 HISTORY OF PExXNSYLVANIA. 

The governors sided witli the oppressors, aud sent home 
bad accounts of the character of the people. The ministrj^ 
aud the king were foolishly insistent on supposed rights, 
and receded from their position just enough to encourage 
and develop the spirit of colonial resistance. Thus the gap 
became wider as the j^ears passed by. 

Various plans were devised for a union of the colonies. 
The first was that proposed by William Penn in 1696, which 
involved a central parliament in XewYork, made up of 
two delegates from each colony, of course in subordination 
to Britain. Many English statesmen desired union for 
simplicity and efficiency of government, but the idea of 
union among the people of the colonies was a thought of 
slow develoj^ment. 

The first actual attempt resulted in the meeting at Albanj^, 
in 1754, of a congress of colonies, to consider measures for 
concerted action against the French and their Indian allies. 
Incidentally, a plan of union was adopted, drawn up b}^ 
Franklin, which was vigorously repudiated by the legisla- 
tures of all the colonies represented, seven in number. 

The colonies did not seriously resist the Navigation Acts 
which decreed that commerce was to be carried on in Eng- 
lish vessels, and passed through English hands before going 
to America, from whatever part of the world it might come. 
These were vexatious restrictions, but were assumed to be 
within the power of the crown. Philadelphia, the chief 
commercial city, was the greatest sufferer, yet she offered 
no strong resistance. Smuggling increased and the i:)rofits 
of legitimate trade were diminished, but the merchants of 
all the towns grumbled and yielded. But when, in 1763, 
Charles Townshend announced that all charters ought to be 
annulled and a standing army maintained in America, he 
awoke a spirit which was quiet only because it was not 
believed that he expressed the sentiment of the ministry. 

The first step towards this end was the imposition of a 
tax to help defray the expenses of the French wars in 
America. There was something plausible in this. The 
wars were for the benefit of the colonies, and, if the matter 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 165 

had been properly gone about, it is not unlikely they would 
have given a considerable sum. It is true the colonies had 
contributed liberally. Some of them went heavily into 
debt J and the parliament had acknowledged its obligation by 
payment to some of them at the close of the war. But so 
imi)ortant was it to them to be relieved of harassment on the 
borders, and to be allowed to expand westward, that almost 
any amount of money England chose to collect might be 
reasonably urged as no more than due. 

AVhen, therefore, in March, 1764, a bill passed Parliament 
requiring all legal documents in America, after the lapse 
of a year, to be provided with stamps, it was not a question 
of money which aroused public opinion from Massachusetts 
to Georgia, it was the right of England to impose such a 
tax, or any tax, without American consent. Beginning 
with Massachusetts, almost all the provincial assemblies, 
including that of Pennsylvania, sent simple and dignified 
remonstrances, protesting against the assumption of this 
right. 

Franklin, who as agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly 
had attempted to break down the proprietary control of the 
government of the province, was instructed to i^rotest most 
vigorously against the new tax. He wrote back advising 
acquiescence, and secured the appointment of a friend, John 
Hughes, as stamp agent. But for once he mistook the 
temper of his colony. 

The assembly adopted resolutions declaring that the prov- 
ince had always cheerfully contributed to the royal needs, 
and would do so in future ; that its inhabitants were free 
men under a free constitution, and entitled to all the lib- 
erties of British subjects anywhere ; that it was one of the 
essential principles of liberty to be taxed only by their own 
consent through their legal representatives in the assembly ; 
which privilege they j)roposed to maintain and transmit to 
their posterity. At the same time they appointed delegates 
to a stamp- act congress to be convened at ISTew York, at 
the suggestion of Massachusetts, in October, 1765. These 
were Dickinson, Fox, Bryan, and Morton. 



166 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The same month the ship bearing the stamped papers for 
JiTew Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland arrived at Phila- 
delphia. Flags were hung at half-mast, bells were tolled, 
and a great meeting was held in the State house to con- 
sider how to prevent the distribution of the stamps. A 
delegation was sent to Mr. Hughes, requesting him to re- 
sign. This he refused to do, but agreed to take no imme- 
diate action, and not to assume his office, until the people 
I)ermitted it. The stamps were kept on shipboard. The 
newsi>apers, which needed stamps to make their issue lawful, 
printed their own obituary notices ; their death, however, 
proving to be only a brief suspension of life, the resurrec- 
tion plea being "Ko stamped paper to be had." Legal 
business ceased, and the public offices were closed for six 
months. 

As a matter of reprisal the Philadelphia merchants agreed 
to the absolute non- importation of English goods, and to 
refrain from the eating of sheep, so that woollen industries 
might be developed. 

The stamp-act congress met, nine colonies being repre- 
sented. A petition to the king and a memorial to Parlia- 
ment, probably written by John Dickinson, were adopted 
and signed, j)rotesting seriously against taxation by English 
authority. These were afterwards endorsed by the Penn- 
sylvania Assemblj^ 

The evident determination of the colonies not to pay the 
tax, the appeals of friendly Englishmen who appreciated 
the motives of the colonists, the destruction of English trade 
caused by the non-importation and non-consumption reso- 
lutions, brought England to her senses. Pitt, from his sick 
bed in the House of Commons, thundered against the stu- 
pidity of the ministers, and rejoiced in American resistance. 
The act was repealed after an inglorious existence of six 
months. 

Great were the rejoicings. In Philadelphia there were 
bonfires and entertainments, but no disorder and no arro- 
gance of triumph. Pitt was the hero of the day, and even 
George ITT. enjoyed a little brief popularity. The whole 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 167 

course of Philadelphia was firm, yet moderate. The agents 
were not maltreated or driven out as in other colonies, the 
^ ^ Sons of Liberty' ' destroyed no crown property, and the 
repeal brought no intemperate demonstrations. But there 
was a perfect comprehension of the principles involved, 
and an unyielding disposition to use no stamps and admit 
no compromise. The publications of the day reflected an 
intelligent and determined public opinion, before which 
England had no choice but to yield. 

She yielded the act, but in the same breath asserted her 
right to tax America as she pleased. In the joy of repeal 
this declaration was overlooked by the colonists. It bore 
fruit, however, in a few months. Relinquishing as impolitic, 
internal taxation, Townshend's influence with Parliament 
was sufficient to enact in 1767 a system of duties on the 
wine, oil, and fruits of Portugal, and on all glass, paper, 
lead, and tea imported ; and what added to the objectionable 
features of the bill, the revenue was to go towards the pay- 
ment of fixed salaries of governors and judges, thus making 
them independent of popular approval. Townshend died 
in a few months after the passage of these acts, but George 
III., decorous and industrious, but dense and short-sighted, 
made them his own, with Lord Korth as adviser and 
executive. 

Massachusetts, under the leadership of Samuel Adams, 
was again foremost in resistance, and sent a circular letter 
asking the other colonies to co-operate. The Pennsylvania 
Assembly promptly agreed. In a respectful address to the 
king this body called his attention to their struggles to settle 
the country and add to his dominions, to their excellent 
constitution, and to their possession of all the rights of Eng- 
lishmen. ''But most gracious sovereign," they concluded, 
' ' should the Commons of Great Britain persist in depriving 
us of this most invaluable principle (the right to levy their 
own taxes) it will be with the deepest affliction that the 
people of these colonies must perceive so unfortunate a dis- 
tinction established between your majesty's loyal British 
and American subjects ; leaving the one in possession of all 



168 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

those rights which are necessary to the most jjerfect politi- 
cal liberty, and the other bereaved of that which alone 
constitutes the foundation and security of all their other 
privileges." 

The man who guided the pen of this address and did 
more than any one to form public sentiment in America and 
to show the true principles of resistance was John Dick- 
inson. His ^'Farmer's Letters," beginning in 1768, were 
widely read and greatly admired in America and England. 
They were the ajjpeals of a statesman, not a demagogue, 
to conserve the liberties which Englishmen have always 
considered their due, by methods which Englishmen have 
found successful in the past. Unqualifiedly rebuking the 
tyranny which had attempted to impose on America the 
duties on paper, glass, and tea, he appeals to England to 
meet the colonies in a conciliatory spirit, and remove the 
obnoxious taxes. With a veiled hint as to the x)ossibility of 
ultimate armed resistance, he yet counsels his brethren to 
carry on their opi)Osition by legal and moderate, if firm 
measures. ''The cause of liberty is a cause of too much 
dignity to be sullied by turbulence and tumult. It ought 
to be maintained in a mannei' suitable to her nature. Those 
who engage in it should breathe a sedate, yet fervent spirit, 
animating them to actions of prudence, justice, modesty, 
bravery, humanity, and magnanimity." 

Again the colonists agreed to non-importation of English 
goods as the best means to bring the ministry and Parlia- 
ment to terms. Home manufacturers were encouraged and 
there was a universal agreement to do without the taxed 
articles. Again the English yielded to the cry of their 
merchants, and in 1770 took off all the offending taxes ex- 
cept that on tea ; a foolish reservation, which only exasper- 
ated the Americans without producing any revenue. It 
was enough to induce New York to break the non-importa- 
tion agreement, much to the disgust of Philadelphia. 
''You had better send us your old liberty pole," said the 
Quaker City, "for you clearly have no further use for it." 
The defection of 'New York, however, broke the bond, and, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 169 

except tea, importation was generally renewed. This article 
was obtained by smuggling from the continent. 

So matters went on till 1773. The East India Tea Com- 
pany had lost its American trade and was in a bad way. 
The king evolved the ingenious idea that if tea were 
made cheap enough the Americans would buy it, paying 
the duty, and so the principle, for which they contended, 
would fall to the ground. He took off all duties which tea 
paid on entering England so that it could be exported to 
America and sold cheaper than the smuggled tea from Hol- 
land, and then he resolved to settle the matter with one 
grand stroke. He sent vessels to the four great ports, — 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. The 
dramatic conduct of the Bostonians is well known and was 
really the first militant act of the Eevolution. In Philadel- 
phia a mass meeting was held at which firm but temperate 
resolutions were adopted, declaring that no government had 
a right to take their property without their consent ; that 
the tax on tea was such an attempt ; that it was the duty of all 
Americans steadily to resist ; that any one who would aid 
in the sale was an enemy to his country 5 that the consignees 
of the East India Company be requested to resign their 
api)ointment. This recjuest was complied with, and private 
persons expecting other merchandise agreed to forego re- 
ceiving it. As the ship had not been cleared, the Quaker 
firm to which the tea was consigned advanced the captain 
a sum of money to purchase necessary provisions, and the 
ship sailed back to England, while a song of triumph was 
heard in Philadelphia. Not a chest of tea was sold in any 
American town. 

Then came, early in 1774, the closing of the port of Bos- 
ton. All the fury of English persistence in evil doing was 
poured out upon the town which was considered the cause of 
all the trouble, and Boston must submit or rebel. For the 
latter she needed allies, and she sent Paul Revere to gain the 
supi)ort of the rich and populous colony of Pennsylvania. 

The Quakers were still the dominant sect, and they had 
gone about as far in resistance as their jn-inciples would 



170 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

allow. No people had more pronounced ideas of human 
rights than they, and hitherto they had heartily joined in 
the popular measures. But now they saw that war was 
coming, and against war they felt bound to protest. They 
were beginning to withdraw from the movement, and the 
men who had the revolutionary cause most at heart saw 
that a prudent course must be adopted if they would carry 
with them these respectable, wealthy, and influential people, 
who largely controlled without occui:>ying the assembly, 
and to whom many of the Germans looked with unshaken 
confidence for advice. 

Tlie friends to whom Paul Revere was accredited were 
Joseph Eeed, Charles Thomson, and Thomas Mifflin. Reed 
was a young lawyer from New Jersey, and a fiery patriot, 
who became a general in Washington's army. Thomson 
was the old head-master of the Penn Charter School, the 
secretary for the Indians at their treaties, who understood 
the Quakers perfectly and had married one, though he 
himself was never a member. He was secretary of the 
Continental Congress through all its long and checkered 
career, and repository of all the secrets of government. 
Afterwards he translated the Septuagint, and lived to a good 
old age at his home near the present Bryn Mawr. His notes 
of revolutionary affairs, kept through his public life, he 
finally destroyed, because they contained focts which he 
thought had better be forgotten. 

Mifflin was a Quaker, but, being a man of war, quickly 
lost his membership. He became a prominent general, 
l^resident of the Continental Congress, governor of Penn- 
sylvania, and member of the convention which framed the 
Constitution of the United States. 

But Dickinson was the man of all others to be gained to 
the patriot cause, and Dickinson was ready to go with them. 
His well-known clearness of thinking and conservative 
temper, it was believed, would draw into the cause the 
moderate men, and especially the Quakers. 

A public meeting was arranged. Reed, Mifflin, and Thom- 
son spoke with fervor, and Thomson fainted in the midst of 










CHARLES THOMSON. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 171 

his speech. Then in a quiet, dignified speech Dickinson 
urged moderation. Dr. Smith, the provost of the college, 
wrote the reply to send to Boston, which was sympathetic 
and plain in its assertion of the colonial rights. Another 
and larger meeting at the State house went still further, 
endorsing the call of a congress of all the colonies to meet 
in Philadelphia, and urging all Pennsylvania to be actively 
loyal to the common cause. The assembly was requested to 
meet and appoint representatives to the Colonial Congress. 
The Quaker State was surging into line, and John Dickinson 
and Charles Thomson were directing the movement. 

The first Continental Congress assembled in Carpenters' 
Hall, Philadelphia, in September, 1774. Pennsylvania was 
represented by Dickinson, Mifflin, Joseph Galloway (after- 
wards a prominent British sympathizer), Samuel Ehoads, 
Edward Biddle, John Morton, George Eoss, and Charles 
Humphreys. Thomson, though not a delegate, was made 
secretary. Samuel and John Adams came from Massachu- 
setts, the Livingstones from New York and New Jersey, 
Peyton Eandolph (who was made president), Patrick 
Henry, Eichard Henry Lee, and George Washington, from 
Virginia, the Eutledges and Gadsden, from South Carolina. 
The congress well represented the revolutionary feeling of 
the country, which was at this stage determined to resist, 
but fully expected to obtain the desired ends by constitu- 
tional means, and, except Samuel Adams and perhaps a 
few others, had no serious thoughts of independence. John 
Dickinson wrote their papers. 

With great unanimity they espoused the cause of Massa- 
chusetts, and resolved that contributions ought to be for- 
warded to her sufferers. They requested merchants in 
general to refuse to import goods from Great Britain, and 
later resolved that all imports from and exports to England 
and her colonies should cease within a year. The clamor 
of London merchants had w^rought out their will on several 
occasions already, and they were disposed to try it again 
more unitedly. 

They also adopted a declaration of rights, an address to 



172 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the people of America, one to the people of Great Britain^ 
and one to the king. The last breathed loyalty, while pre- 
senting very x:)lainly their grievances. Lord Chatham spoke 
of these addresses as unsurpassed in ability by any state 
papers of any age or any country, and urged them on the 
attention of the ministry. 

The assembly of Pennsylvania, elected yearly, and still 
in the hands of moderate men, unanimously approved the 
report of the congressional proceedings, and recommended 
the suggestions to the observance of the people. They ap- 
pointed delegates to the congress to meet in Philadelphia 
in May, 1775, unless the grievances were by that time re- 
dressed. 

These delegates were nearly the same as before. Rhoads, 
who was mayor of Philadelphia, and Galloway, who was out 
of sympathy with the movement, were excused at their own 
request ; Franklin, who returned from London within a few 
days of the opening of the congress, was added to the dele- 
gation. 

That distinguished Pennsylvanian came home full of 
honors. Sent over originally in 1764 jis the agent of one 
province and with one especial mission, he had become the 
practical if not the acknowledged representative of all the 
colonies in their difficulties with the mother country. It 
soon became evident to him and to his constituents that the 
cause he had so warml}^ espoused, the transfer of the govern- 
ment from the proprietors to the crown, was no longer 
desirable if possible. He was accused of lukewarmness in 
opposing the Stamp Act, he advised his province not to de- 
sist, and secured the suj^posed emoluments of the place for a 
friend. He advised the Bostonians to pay for the tea, and 
gained their wrathful negative to his advice. In conj unction 
with Dr. Fothergill and David Barclay he drew up a plan, 
honorable to both countries, which they sincerely hoped 
would settle all points of dispute, but which was ruth- 
lessly tossed aside by the ministry. These evidences of 
modei-ation on the one hand combined with unquestioned 
devotion to his country, and firm, but diplomatic resistance 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 173 

to ministerial schemes on the other, and a just pride in his 
literary and scientific attainments, made him overwhelm- 
ingly popular in America. His return to Philadelphia was 
a triumph. The moderate and revolutionist both welcomed 
him as likely to add strength to his cause. He did not 
leave them long in doubt, but immediately threw the great 
weight of his abilities and influence into the cause of radical 
resistance to British tyranny. 

In January, 1775, Lord Chatham made a last ajjpeal to the 
ministry to preserve the peace. ^ ^ Eesistance to your acts was 
necessary as it was just." He urged them to withdraw the 
troops from Boston ; to give up their attempts at taxation ; to 
do justice and not assert untenable prerogative ; and warned 
them of the inevitable ultimate failure of the attempt to 
coerce America. The greatest statesman of England gave his 
solemn opinion in the greatest speech of his life that the 
cause of justice was not on the side of his country, and 
thereby gained the applause of all succeeding generations 
in England and America foi: his brave and true words. But 
the purpose of king and ministry was unchanged. 

Before the second Continental Congress met in May, 1775, 
Lexington and Concord had been fought, and an American 
army had assembled around Boston. John Adams, a month 
before, had asserted ''That there are any who pant after 
independence is the greatest slander in the province." ]N'ot 
only had it become manifest that no attention would be paid 
to the appeals of the last congress, but the story of the 
successful fight of the Massachusetts militia against the 
British regulars had stirred the revolutionary spirit to its 
depths, and put faith and courage into the hearts of the 
doubtful. 

Governor Penn, while professedly sympathizing with the 
American resistance, urged upon Pennsylvania that the 
l^roper media of remonstrance were the i)rovincial assem- 
blies, and not a continental congress. To this view the 
assembly decidedly demurred. They replied that they '' had 
too great a regard for their engagements (to other provinces) 
to accept benefits for themselves only which were due to all. 



174 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and which by a generous rejection for the present might be 
finally secured to all." 

But this dignified j^osition, firm though it was, was too 
slow for the more radical element of the population. A 
l^rovincial convention was held, presided over by Joseph 
Reed, which warmly supi)orted the recommendations of the 
Continental Congress, and took measures to succor such as 
should be damaged by future loss of trade with England. 
When the news of Lexington came, an immense meeting of 
the people of Philadelphia agreed 'Ho associate for the 
purpose of defending with arms their lives, their property, 
and liberty." These ^^associators" sprang up all over the 
province, engaged in "learning the art of war," and every 
county raised its quota. The Quaker meetings, true to 
their peace principles, could not restrain many of their 
younger members from joining the ranks, and amid a 
rousing enthusiasm, enhanced by the news of the capture 
of Ticonderoga, the second Continental Congress assembled 
on May 10, 1775. 

Yet the wisest men hesitated. Again they decided upon 
an address to the king. Again Dickinson's clear thinking 
and forcible pen were in demand, and exercised unbounded 
influence over the proceedings. Franklin shook his head 
and predicted that further appeals to England would be 
in vain. Mifflin vehemently protested against delay in 
adopting forcible measures. The determination to sustain 
Massachusetts never flagged. The proscribed John Han- 
cock was made president 5 the militia everywhere were 
advised to arm and train. It was decided to have a con- 
tinental army, and on June 15th George Washington was 
chosen commander-in-chief. "No decisive step, however, 
looking to independence, was taken. 

There cannot be much doubt that the sentiment of the 
majority of Pennsylvanians at the outbreak of the war was 
averse to military resistance to England. The Quakers and 
the Germans, who had always controlled the assembly, were 
opposed to it, the one from j^rinciple, the other i)artly from 
principle and x^artly from indiff'erence. The militant leaders. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 175 

Eeed, Thomsou, and Mifflin^ to which list we must now 
add Franklin, found themselves supported by large numbers 
of all denominations in Philadelphia and by the Presbyte- 
rians everywhere ; and by their organization and activity 
they were leading, and sometimes forcing, public sentiment. 
The attitude of the people was reflected in the assembly, 
which was elected annually, and would not sanction radical 
measures. Time was bringing more and more friends to 
the cause of liberty, and Dickinson and Thomson, who 
understood the situation perfectly, desired that prudent 
means only should be taken till the Pennsylvanians were 
ready. But this did not suit the more violent, and they 
set themselves to work to abolish the Penn charter of 1701, 
to get rid of the assembly, and to make such changes as 
would install in power undoubted friends of independence 
and war. They secured from the house the appointment of 
a "Committee of Public Safety," which had power to call 
the associators into service, to provide for their support 
and the protection of the province against invasion. Dr. 
Franklin was chosen president. An attempt was made to 
require of all adult males military service or a pecuniary 
equivalent, but out of regard for the Quakers and other 
peace sects, this was not at this time pressed. They, how- 
ever, were advised to aid wherever they could, and their 
response was a liberal contribution of food and clothing to 
the needy sufferers of Massachusetts, raised by subscription 
In all their meetings. 

Furthermore, they addressed the house, setting forth their 
religious faith, calling attention to the provision of the 
existing charter, which decreed that no person could be 
molested in matters of conscience. They declared that they 
had a just sense of the value of liberty, and desired to pre- 
serve it by all measures not inconsistent with their Christian 
profession, yet they thought that peaceable resistance, with 
meekness and firmness, was the proper attitude towards a 
government which oi)i)ressed them. 

Against this position the revolutionary committees vigor- 
ously protested. They attacked the doctrine of peace and 



176 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

demanded that in this time of danger all should share 
alike, and that no citizens should be permitted to withdraw 
themselves and their property from the common cause. 
Such would gain all the benefits of success, and risk nothing 
from failure. The doctrines of the Quakers, they said, 
were incompatible with freedom. The assembly, thus 
urged, resolved that all persons between sixteen and fifty 
who did not associate in warlike employ ought to contribute 
a financial equivalent. 

While the provinces were moving on towards the position 
of armed opjDosition to the English government, they were 
still conducting their own political affairs in his majesty's 
name. Early in 1776 the Continental Congress recommended 
to them, ' ' where no government sufficient to the exigencies 
of their affairs has been hitherto established," to set up new 
machinery adapted to the changed circumstances. This 
immediately brought before the people of Pennsylvania 
their own political conditions. Did they possess a gov- 
ernment sufficient to the exigencies of affairs, and if not, 
could the constituted assembly make the necessary change ! 
The proprietaries and the legislature were disposed to answer 
both questions affirmatively, the first doubtfully, the second 
without question. They pointed out the truly represent- 
ative character of their assembly and the liberties granted 
by the charter now In operation for seventy-five years. 
They represented the wealth and education of the city, and 
many of the steady-going farmers of the great agricultural 
counties. The more active citizens, however, impatient of 
anything which recognized English authority, were deter- 
mined to break entirely with the past. Borrowing English 
names they called themselves Whigs and their opponents 
Tories. 

At a public meeting held May 20, 1776, it was resolved 
that the assembly, drawing its powers from the king and 
elected for other purposes, had no authority to form a new 
government, and that a convention be called together for 
the purpose. 

This proposition was viewed with alarm by many repu- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 177 

table citizens. The Tories, of course, opposed it. Many of 
the warm friends of the Revolution, like Charles Thomson, 
also opposed it as unnecessary and harsh, and as likely to 
make enemies among those who, by a little x^ersuasion, could 
be brought into the movement. 

But the plan was impetuously rushed forward. In obedi- 
ence to the resolutions of the town meeting, a conference 
from all the counties of the province met in Philadelphia 
and ordered an election for members of a convention to re- 
vise the government of Pennsylvania. All present voters 
and all associators might vote, but any one might be re- 
quired to take oath or affirmation abjuring his allegiance to 
George III., and expressing his willingness to live peaceably 
under a free government. Under this provision the friends 
of the old system refused to take part in the election, the 
Whigs had everything their own way, and the convention 
of their ardent friends was called to meet on the 8th of 
July. 

Before this date, an event, great in importance to all the 
colonies and to the future United States, was brought to a 
successful issue in the State House, on Chestnut Street, 
Philadelphia, — the adoption and signing of the Declaration 
of Independence. Our history interests itself especially 
with the attitude of the Pennsylvania delegation towards 
this memorable occurrence. 

The memorial to the king, on which the last hopes of 
maintaining union with the mother country were built, 
was sent to him, in order to make it palatable, by Richard 
Penn, grandson of the founder, one of the proprietaries of 
Pennsylvania, who, though a loyalist, possessed the confi- 
dence of the Americans. When the king refused to admit 
him to his presence or in any way receive the address, and 
issued a proclamation stating that his American subjects 
were in rebellion, and hired troops in Germany, the most of 
the delegates felt that the last hope was gone. On the 8th 
of June, Richard Henry Lee offered his memorable reso- 
lutions, which were seconded by John Adams, the first of 
which was ; ^ ' That these United Colonies are and ought to 

12 



178 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

be free and independent States ; that they are absolved from 
all allegiance to the British Crown ; and that all i:)olitical 
connection between them and the State of Great Britain is 
and ought to be totally dissolved." This was resisted by 
Dickinson and Wilson, of Pennsylvania, on the ground that 
it was i^remature, that there was no efl&cient union among 
the colonies, that haste would hurt the ripening sentiment 
of the middle states, and that recognition by and alliance 
with foreign powers would not be gained by declarations, 
but by military success. The question was postponed for 
three weeks. 

In the mean time drafts of treaties with foreign powers 
were drawn up, and the Articles of Confederation, under 
which the colonies worked till 1790, were put into shape. 
These were all the work of Dickinson. Every important 
state paper of the times just preceding the Eevolution had 
been the product of his pen. 

During this time also the states which had not already in- 
structed their delegates, with the excei)tiou of New York, 
had been induced by popular pressure to pass resolutions 
authorizing independence, so that when, on July 1, debate 
was resumed it was felt that the decision could not be 
X)ostponed. On the next day the vote was taken, all the 
colonies except New York, which was silent, voting in favor 
of Lee's resolution. 

The Pennsylvania delegation consisted of Franklin, Dick- 
inson, Wilson, Willing, Morris, Morton, and Humphries. 
Franklin was the only one of these who originally voted for 
independence. Wilson and Morton Avere brought over on 
the day of voting. Willing and Humphries were consist- 
ently in the opposition, and Dickinson and Robert Morris 
absented themselves. The vote, therefore, stood three to 
two in favor of independence. On the 4th of July the final 
draft of the Declaration was adopted to conform to the 
decision of two days earlier. The signatures were not at- 
tached till August. In the mean time the delegation had 
been partly changed, so that the ^'signers" were Eobert 
Morris, Benjamin Eush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 179 

George Clymer, James Smitli, George Taylor, James Wil- 
son, and George Ross. 

At the time appointed the conference for reorganizing the 
government of Pennsylvania met, and made Franklin presi- 
dent. From the day it assembled it assumed all the powers 
of the State. The assembly, it is true, met in August, 
without a quorum, and again in September. At this time 
nothing was done except to settle some matters relating to 
the accounts of the province, and to enter a formal protest 
against the assumptions of power by the convention as un- 
warranted by any instructions of the i)eoi)le, and dangerous 
to liberty. They then adjourned and never met again. 

So fell Penn's charter, and so ended the sessions of a body 
of legislators unexcelled in integrity, in wisdom, in devo- 
tion to popular rights and liberties by any similar body in 
any state. Since 1701, by yearly elections, they had kept 
in close touch with their constituents, correctly interpreting 
their wants and prudently guiding their aspirations. They 
had brought their province to the front rank in numbers, 
wealth, and order ; their chief city to be a model for Amer- 
ica of decorum and progress in all that constitutes good 
government. In the trying days of changing sentiment pre- 
ceding the war they had probably gone as rapidly as their 
constituents. They had authorized their delegates to vote 
for indei)endence, and had passed enactments for arming and 
organizing the militia ; and many lovers of the Revolution, 
like Dickinson, Thomson, and Mifflin, would have left them 
alone as fairly reflecting the x^oi)ular will, and as likely to 
be equal to all emergencies, but the radicals would not 
have it so. Their i)recipitate action drove a number of 
men, respectable for wealth and virtue, to the loyalist side. 
It alienated the sympathies of many Quakers and the 
many friends of the proprietaries and of established order, 
and it gained but little, for the new constitution was an ill- 
considered and defective instrument which could not prove 
permanent. 

The death of the charter was the death of Quaker influ- 
ence in politics. War time was no time for them. They 



180 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

took no part as a body on either side. Large numbers of 
their young men entered the American army and a A^ery 
few the British. These were all ''disowned" for violating 
the Quaker testimony in favor of peace. Many of the 
wealthy merchants of Philadelphia, as well as of ^N'ew York 
and Boston, were British symj^athizers, and this included a 
number of Quakers. They were not active, and gave no aid 
to the loyalist cause. They did not, as did other loyalists, 
leave the city with the British troops, but quietly lived down 
the opprobrium their jiassive toryism had occasioned. They 
A^ere vastly unpopular during and immediately after the 
war, and suffered much in person and estate, but this soon 
passed away. They never, however, attempted to re-enter 
the political life of the State which they had founded and 
largely controlled for nearly a century. Their official posi- 
tion was something like this : We opposed by all legitimate 
means the British encroachments on liberty. AVe considered 
them ill-advised, tyrannical, and, in view of their certain 
effects, wicked. AYe would disobey them and take the 
consequences. But we stop at war. A\^e cannot join in 
armed resistance, for that is contrary to our conception of 
Christian teaching ; nor can we actively aid in setting up 
illegally, and for the purpose of prosecuting the war, a 
government on the ruins of the old charter, which we 
consider quite equal to the emergencies ; nor will we hire 
men to do the fighting we cannot do ourselves, nor pay 
taxes to aid measures against our consciences. Certainly 
we will not aid Britain in enforcing its unrighteous decrees. 
We can be nothing in this time of commotion but quiet 
citizens, espousing neither side and suffering whatever is 
put upon us. AVhen an established government again 
exists we will yield it our allegiance. 

Of course, there was no material for revolution in such a 
platform as this, and so Quakerism had to step aside along 
with the more militant loyalism which characterized the 
friends of the proprietaries and many wealthy citizens. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

Maryland Boundary — Connecticut Claims — "Yankee AVar" — Virginia 
and New York Claims — Indian War — Composition of Population — 
The Germans — Sects and Church People — Zinzendorf, Schlatter, 
and Muhlenburg — Sauer — The Scotch-Irish — Episcopalian Schools 
and Colleges — University of Pennsylvania — Educated Men — Frank- 
lin and His Institutions — Philadelphia Architecture — The State 
House — Industrial Condition. 

In making continuous the story of Pennsylvania's politi- 
cal developmentj several matters of importance have been 
omitted. These we will now take up, so as to make the 
history complete to the death of Penn's charter in 1776. 

We have seen that after vexations, suits, and disputes, 
dating back to* 1681, the Penns and the Baltimores had come 
to an agreement, in 1750, that the boundary lines between 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland should be decided 
by a commission who should be guided by the following con- 
clusions : The line of Delaware should run west from near 
Cape Henloi^en to the centre of the peninsula, thence in a 
northerly direction, tangent to the circumference of a circle 
drawn with a twelve-mile radius around New Castle as a 
centre, thence around this circumference to the Delaware 
Eiver. The Pennsylvania line should start at the point of 
tangency and run due north to a parallel of latitude fifteen 
miles south from the southernmost point of the city of 
Philadelphia, and then directly west the whole length of the 
province. 

This did not, however, settle the matter, for other ques- 
tions could still be found to differ about, and it was not till 
1763 that the problem was finally entrusted to two expert 
English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, 
who, in accord with the terms of the arrangement, located 
the southern line of Pennsylvania at latitude 39° 44'. Every 
five miles they set up stones marked with the Penn and Bal- 

181 



182 HISTORY OF PENXSYLYANIA. 

timore arms. Between these at mile intervals other stones 
marked P on one side and M on the other were planted. 
All of these stones were brought from England. In 1767, 
after locating about two hundred and fifty miles, the Indians 
objected to their westward course, and the remainder of 
their work was postponed. Over the uninhabited moun- 
tains the line was marked by heaps of stones, and west of 
this by i)osts heaped around with stones and earth. "■ Mason 
and Dixon's Line" thus settled a controversy of nearly a 
century, and in time divided not only two states, but two 
diverse sectional ideas — freedom and slaverj-. 

While the Penns were having trouble in protecting their 
boundaries in the south, another claimant had to be fought 
in the north. Connecticut, about 1753, became possessed 
with the idea that she owned a strii> of land as wide as her- 
self and extending indefinitelj^ westward. She admitted 
that New York was a barrier, but overleai)ing this the 
strip began with the eastern boundary of Pennsylvania and 
embraced the whole northern section of the state. The 
basis of this claim was their charter of 1662, which ante- 
dated that to YVilliam Penn, and admitted of no western 
limit but the Pacific. 

YVith this foundation a com^^any was formed to buy of 
the Indians and settle a large tract lying along the Susque- 
hanna Eiver and extending westwardly to the Allegheny 
Mountains. The purchase was, in a way, eifected in 1754 
at the Albany treaty, — that is, the l^ew Englanders found 
some Indians who were willing to give a deed in exchange 
for presents. As the Indian titles had previously been 
bought by the Penns in 1736, the purchase had little valid- 
ity. There was enough, however, to begin the occupation, 
and a large number of Connecticut settlers pressed in. In 
1755 surveyors laid out tracts in the beautiful YYyoming 
Valley, since famed in song and in cruel Indian warfare, and 
mills and houses were built and occupied. These woodsmen 
derived their titles from Connecticut and denied the authority 
of Pennsylvania. They suffered severely from the Indians, 
who considered tliem intruders. In 1764 additional surveys 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 183 

were made, and grants to settlers given on condition that 
they would remain on the ground and defend themselves 
against all attacks of red and white men. The influx con- 
tinued till 1769, when a stockade — ^' Forty Fort" — was 
erected. 

By this time the Penns became aware that something 
must be done. They surveyed land in the lieart of the 
Connecticut country and leased it with the same condition, 
that it should be held against all intruders. A miniature 
war followed which centred around the site of the present city 
of Wilkesbarre. The '^ fort" was stormed by the sheriff and 
his posse, and the offenders taken to Easton, where they 
were bailed and returned to Wyoming. This happened* re- 
peatedly. The " Pennamite and Yankee War" continued 
for two years. Forts were built and captured, prisoners 
were taken and held as hostages. The Pennsylvanians were 
worsted in the encounters, and finally withdrew their armed 
force. Their assembly declared they had nothing to do with 
it, and left the proprietaries to settle it as best they could, 
as the land would all belong to them in the event of making 
good their claim. The Connecticut legislature, in 1773, 
resolved that it would sui^port the claims of its colony and 
appointed commissioners to treat with the Penns, when 
another war ensued, the Connecticut claimants still holding 
the land. 

The dispute was carried to England. In the mean time 
Connecticut exercised jurisdiction. In 1775 Governor Penn 
sent an army of five hundred men to drive out the settlers. 
The attack was defeated. The Continental Congress then 
resolved that the contending parties should cease their 
efforts till a legal settlement should be effected. 

The Eevolutionary War interfered with this, and it was 
not till 1782 that a body of commissioners decided that the 
disputed land belonged to Pennsylvania. In the mean 
time, as we shall presently narrate, the ' ^ Wyoming Massa- 
cre" had been consummated. 

Pennsylvania also had trouble with Virginia over her 
western boundary. The Old Dominion had an indefinite 



184 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

claim to all land west and northwest of lier, and under this 
included the present city of Pittsburg, and for some time 
exercised authority there. Penn's charter allowed him five 
degrees of longitude, and the controversy was settled dur- 
ing the Eevolutionary ^^ar by the decision that this five 
degrees should be measured on Mason and Dixon's line, and 
not from the most eastern point of the province. From 
the extremity of this southern line a line was to be drawn 
due north to constitute the western limit of the state, and 
this gave Pittsburg to Pennsylvania. 

The northern boundary was also a subject of dispute with 
New York. Penn's charter gave him three degrees of 
latitude, which would have included Albany. Pennsylvania 
never seriously entered this claim, but the final establish- 
ment of i)arallel 42° for its northern boundary was not 
made till 1789. The year previously, by permission of 
Congress, Pennsylvania had bought of the Indians the 
corner north of this x)arallel and west of New York, extend- 
ing up to Lake Erie. She completed her right to the 
^' Erie Triangle" by purchasing, three years later, the in- 
terest of the United States Government for about one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand dollars. 

Indian troubles did not cease with the defeat of Pontiac 
in 1764. White men still encroached upon Indian lands, 
and real or pretended difficulties in determining boundaries 
caused friction. Vengeance on the Conestoga and Lancas- 
ter murderers was still unappeased, and the crimes of a 
villain in Cumberland County, in 1767, almost produced 
another outbreak. He had killed four men and two women 
Indians, who had sought his hospitality, and then going to 
their cabins slew the children. Through jealousy of the 
provincial government the crime went unpunished by the 
local authorities. 

These many grievances rankled with the Indians. The 
Pennsylvania Assembly, however, wisely determined to ap- 
pease them. They ordered trespassers to remove under 
penalty of death, and appropriated a liberal sum to enforce 
the act ; they made renewed efforts to bring the Paxton 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 185 

boys to justice ; and they agreed to establish a boundary 
between ^bite and Indian lands, and to buy all east of this 
line. A treaty with the Five Nations, the Delawares, and 
the Shawnees, in 1769, at Fort Stanwix, sealed this compact. 

The poor Indians converted to Christianity by the Mo- 
ravians, who were saved by their removal to Philadelphia 
in 1764, and whose i)resence there was the occasion of the 
march to that city of the Paxton boys, had settled, after the 
trouble was over, at Wyalusing. There they built a village 
of resi)ectable cabins, a church, and a school-house, and 
cleared and tilled the surrounding land. Secure in certain 
grants from Governor Penn, they hoped to live a peaceful 
life. But the Connecticut war raged around them, and they 
felt unprotected from another white attack. They left all 
their improvements and emigrated as a body to the west 
of the Ohio. 

The last Indian war within the limits of Pennsylvania 
prior to the Eevolution was in 1774, in the extreme west. 
Indians had been killing white men on the Ohio and around 
Pittsburg. The backwoodsmen of Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania organized for defence and punishment, and in turn 
began the promiscuous killing of Indians. The matter was 
taken in hand by Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, 
who raised an army and established a peace. This war de- 
rives an historic interest from the speech of the unfortunate 
Indian chief Logan. 

He was a native of Shamokin, had grown up under the 
influence of the Moravians, and prided himself as being 
the friend of the white man. But thirteen of his kindred 
had been killed and their spirits clamored for blood. He 
went on the war-jiath, and when thirteen white scalps were 
secured he retired from the contest. 

At the treaty at the close of the war, Logan sent this 
message : 

"I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered 
Logan's cabin and he gave him not meat ; if he ever came 
naked and I clothed him not. In the course of the last war 
Logan remained in his cabin an advocate of peace. Such 



18G HISTORY OF PENNSYT.YAXIA. 

was my love for the whites that the rest of my nation pointed 
at me and said 'Logan is the friend of the white man.' I 
should have ever lived with them had it not been for one 
man who last spring cut off all the relations of Logan, not 
sparing women and children. There runs not a drop of my 
blood in the veins of any living creature. This called upon 
me for revenge. I have sought it ; I have killed many and 
fully glutted my revenge. For my nation I rejoice in the 
beams of peace ; but nothing I have said proceeds from fear. 
Logan disdains the thought. He will not turn on his heel to 
save his life . Who is there to mourn for Logan ? ^N^ot one. ' ' 

The population of Pennsylvania at the time of the Eevo- 
lution was probably nearly three hundred thousand. 
Franklin, speaking roughly, and probably referring to 
spheres of political influence, says it was comx)osed one- 
third of Quakers, one-third of Germans, and one-third of 
miscellaneous elements, which did not fuse. 

More than any other colony, Pennsylvania was made up 
of diverse nationalities. The Quakers occupied Philadel- 
phia and the adjacent counties, — Bucks, Philadelphia, and 
Chester. Bordering them, extending from northeast to 
southwest, filling the northern parts of the two former 
counties, and large sections of Northami^ton, Berks, and 
Lancaster, were the Germans. West of these the popu- 
lation was largely of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The Con- 
necticut settlers of Puritan stock were the prevailing in- 
fluence in the AYyoming Valley. The Moravians, though 
never large in numbers, were potential in beneficent in- 
fluence, and made Bethlehem their centre of operations. 
By the time of the Ee volution the Swedes of the Delaware 
Valley had lost their identity, and so to a large extent had the 
Welsh of the ''Barony," just west of Philadelphia. 

As the original proprietors and the prevailing political 
leaders, enough has been said of the Quakers. The other 
elements of the population need further attention. 

The German immigration began with Pastorius and the 
settlers of Germantown. Thev were few in number, and 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 187 

mostly Quaker in their connections. They were followed to 
America by a large number of '' Sects," simple, religious, 
quiet people, all of them having adopted ideas largely in 
harmony with the Quakers, and with their mystical and 
contemplative side even more developed. 

Early in 1694 the ship ' ' Sarah Maria' ' sailed from Lon- 
don with a load of German emigrants. They had a stormy 
voyage, but by escapes which they considered miraculous, 
after a six weeks' voyage they landed in the Chesapeake, 
and found their way to Philadeli)hia. Their leader was 
John Kelpius, and they were Pietists who had come to 
America to establish a community, ''The Society of the 
Woman of the Wilderness," they called it, where they 
could practise their mystical rites and await the coming of 
the Lord, for whom they nightly watched from an obser- 
vatory built on the top of their house. They were holy 
people who would not fight or swear, and were filled with 
a desire to penetrate the deep mysteries of the kingdom 
of God. They established themselves in houses and caves 
along the shaded banks of the Wissahickon, near to Ger- 
mantown. In matters of dogma they did not think it neces- 
sary to agree. Kelpius was a man of great learning in the 
languages, who lived in a cave and gave himself up to 
writing and contemplation. One of his followers introduced 
the Episcopal Church government into Pennsylvania, and 
another was the pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church, 
at Wicaco, in the southern part of Philadelphia. 

The Mennonites were early Protestants, who derived their 
name from Menno Simons, who was born about 1492. They 
anticipated the Quakers by one hundred years in their belief 
in a universal divine light, and in the unchristian character 
of war and oaths. Proscribed by the Catholics, they did 
not find a home among the Protestants, and were fiercely 
persecuted by the reformers of Switzerland, which abuse 
they bore unresistingly. So cruel was their treatment that 
the more liberal Protestants of Eotterdam remonstrated in 
1659. After being driven up and down the Rhine for a 
century and a half, they came in contact with William 



188 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Penn and other Quaker missionaries, and heard of Pennsyl- 
vania. The favorable accounts sent by Pastorius and his 
friends, of their close fraternization with the jDrevailing sect 
of the province, sent, in course of time, almost the whole 
body to the New World. 

In 1688 a new company landed, the leader being William 
Rittinghuysen (Kittenhouse) , who, two years later, built the 
first pai^er mill in Pennsylvania, where the paper for Brad- 
ford's publications was made. In 1702 a new tract on the 
Skippack was i^urchased, and a colony sent there ; numbers 
of them afterwards settled in Lancaster County. 

In the matter of religion they resembled the Quakers, 
except that they did not discard baptism or the rite of the 
Lord's Supper. To these sacraments they added a third, 
the washing of the feet of the brethren, as having equal 
biblical authority with the others. In many cases the Men- 
nonites and the Quakers worshipped together, and, as with 
Pastorius and his associates, it is difficult now to tell to 
which body certain individuals owed their primary alle- 
giance. They probably did not increase in numbers. 

The Dunkers, or German Baptists, began to arrive about 
1719. They joined the Mennonites in Germantown, which 
became their head- quarters. The Sowers, father and son, of 
whom more presently, were their leaders. They ojiposed 
war and oaths, but differed from the Quakers in accepting 
the two common ordinances, to which they added feet- 
washing. A body of them under Conrad Beissel separated, 
about 1728, on the issues that the seventh day of the week 
was the Sabbath, and that celibacy was the highest form of 
life. They established a monastery in Ephrata, in Lancaster 
County, where about three hundred mystical people gathered 
and supported various communistic industries. Here, per- 
haps, the first Sunday-school of the United States was 
established in 1740. Their great scholar, Peter Miller, trans- 
lated the '^ Mennonites Martyr's Mirror," a vast collection 
of old records of suffering, after a labor of three years. He 
and his assistants printed the book about 1748. fifteen hun- 
dred pages of large type on good paper. The five hundred 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 189 

copies still unsold in revolutionary times were seized by 
the American army, and torn uj) into "wads" for muskets ; 
in the eyes of their writers, the most undesirable of all uses. 

The great leader of the ''Sects" was Christopher Sower 
of German town, who made his ofi&ce the head- quarters of 
German Americans. His weekly newspaper circulated all 
over the country. The first Bible printed in a European 
language in America was the German edition which came 
from his press in 1743. It was nearly forty years later that 
the first English Bible was printed. The energetic German 
made his own paper, ink, and type, and completed the 
volume in his own ofiice. He issued many books, and his 
son, of the same name, who inherited his ability and busi- 
ness, added to the list. An almanac came yearly from their 
press, and was full of excellent advice and some crude 
astronomy. 

The Schwenkfelders came in 1734, after two centuries of 
persecution in Silesia. Their views were practically the 
same as the Quakers. They objected to war, oaths, regularly 
paid ministry, and the sacraments. They settled around 
Pennsville, on the Perkiomen, where they still remain. 

All of these immigrants were conscientious men, of more 
than the average education for their time, whose general 
sympathy with the Quakers made them peculiarly welcome 
in the province. While they found the rest and liberty 
they sought, they did not permanently prosper as religious 
bodies. 

The Moravians, or TJnitas Fmtrum, originated among the 
followers of John Huss in Bohemia and Moravia, about the 
middle of the fifteenth century. When Luther appeared 
they numbered about two hundred thousand people, but in 
the desolating v/ars which followed they became almost 
extinct. A few of them worshipped in secret, until in 
1722 Count Zinzendorf, a pious German nobleman, offered 
them an asylum on his estates. A number came, and 
thus Herrnhut became the nucleus of a new growth. The 
original Moravians were Slavonic, the revival brought 
in Germans. Strongly pietistic, possessing unquenchable 



190 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

missionary zeal, and, unlike many of the sects, having no 
distrust of learning, they formed a cultured, devoted society 
for the propagation of Christianity at home and abroad. 

Their adopted home was only temporary, and they found 
it necessary to seek a permanent place beyond the ocean. 
In 1735 they began a settlement in Georgia. The martial 
proclivities of this province not proving acceptable to them, 
for they, like many other bodies of the early reformers, 
were opposed to war and oaths, they found a more congen- 
ial home in Pennsylvania. Here Count Zinzendorf joined 
them, and they bought a resting-place on the Lehigh, which 
they named Bethlehem. 

The settlement prospered from the start. At first it was 
communistic. The church carried on the business and 
owned all the land. Besides agriculture, mills of various 
sorts were started, and were successful. Excellent schools 
were set up. Houses for the brothers and sisters of their 
orders were models of the kind. One of the best inns in 
America was in operation, for Bethlehem was on the main 
line of travel between New England and Pennsylvania and 
the South. Fruit-trees along the streets made the place a 
garden. The church afterwards divided the most of its 
property among the members, but the favorable conditions 
still prevailed. 

Having thus a habitation, the Moravians settled them- 
selves to work. Zinzendorf had a quixotic but praise- 
worthy notion that he could fuse the German bodies into 
one compact and powerful church. When he arrived in 
Philadelphia in 1741 he deliberately, in the presence of the 
governor, renounced his title as count, and called a synod 
of representatives of all the sects and churches. Having 
been himself ordained both by the Lutheran and Moravian 
authorities, no one was better fitted than he to do this, and 
a general response followed. But sectarian lines were hard, 
and, after an auspicious beginning, the bodies fell to fight- 
ing among themselves, and Zinzendorf got only abuse for 
his efforts. 

But if the Moravians could not be the nucleus of a uni- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 191 

versal church, they had two lines of work in which they 
could be highly useful. Many of the German immigrants 
of the time were churchless and schoolless, living in rude 
and dirty surroundings, and growing up in ignorance and 
low ideals. To meet these conditions the emissaries from 
Bethlehem set themselves to work with considerable suc- 
cess, though here again sectarian jealousy was an obstacle 
hard to overcome. Nevertheless, their evangelists traversed 
the land from Maine to Georgia, the farms and mills of 
Bethlehem furnishing the means of support. Everywhere 
there were produced beneficent results in Moravian converts 
and better commonities. 

They had peculiar success also among the Indians. When 
the little band of Moravian red men, which had been shel- 
tered by the Quakers in 1764 from the fury of the Paxton 
raiders, desired a home, they built a village, as they hoped 
in solitude, on the north branch of the Susquehanna, which 
they called Friedenshiitten— tents of peace. David Zeis- 
berger was the leader in all Indian missionary work. He 
set up other peaceable Indian settlements through northern 
and western Pennsylvania. But troubles followed with the 
non-Christian Indians, and he was glad to move all his con- 
verts to eastern Ohio, where he fondly, but vainly, hoped they 
might live in peace. They seemed willing to adopt the pacific 
policy of the Brethren, and a remarkable degree of civiliza- 
tion followed. Their further tragical history, which re- 
sulted in their practical extermination, is not within our 
limits, but the Moravians stood by them to the last. 

The great body of the Germans who came to America 
between 1710 and the Revolution did not belong to these 
sects. They were ^' church people," Reformed or Lutheran. 
In the main they came from the Rhine provinces, including 
Switzerland. The Palatinate, from which they derived the 
name usually given them — Palatines, had been for decades 
the battle-field of Europe, till it was ravaged beyond apparent 
hope of revival. Worry and starvation and i^lunderings 
from political unrest, rather than persecution for conscience' 
sake, made their lot unendurable. "Then," said an early 



192 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

writer, ^'men looked into each other's faces and said, ^Let 
us go to America, and if we perish we perish.' " 

Hearing that Queen Anne had charitably offered a home 
in her American provinces, some thirty thousand, in 1709, 
threw themselves into England. Some were sent to Ireland, 
the Catholics were returned to Germany, and most of the 
others found their way to America. Pennsylvania suited 
them best and became the expected haven for all the dis- 
tressed i:)eople along the Ehine, from Switzerland to the Low 
Countries. At first the immigrants belonged mainly to the 
German Reformed Church. The Lutherans came later. 

Once started, the tide rapidly increased in volume. Ship- 
pers found it to their advantage to crowd them on their 
poorly constructed boats, and hundreds of them died at sea. 
Those who reached the Delaware were often unhealthy and 
in a disgusting condition, and were thrown on the care of 
the Quakers. Some sold themselves as servants for a term 
of years to pay their passage money. They were hardly 
welcome in the province. Governor Keith protested, and 
James Logan more than once expressed to the proprietaries 
the belief that such a large influx of German -speaking 
people was no benefit. They did not, however, trouble the 
settled parts of the colony ; but pressing westward they 
tilled the fertile soil they found outside the Quaker tracts, 
and by their sobriety, thrift, and industry rapidly improved 
their condition. Without caring much for political partici- 
pation, they were in general sympathy with Quaker policy. 
They desired mainly, however, to create a new Germany in 
America, and farm their lands in peace. They suffered 
from lack of ministers and of schools, and made but little 
advance ; many of them were uncouth and illiterate, with 
but little ambition to improve. 

^ So far as the German Reformed Church members are con- 
cerned, the man who organized and educated them was 
Michael Schlatter. He was born in Switzerland in 1716, 
and came to Pennsylvania thirty years later. Well educated, 
and possessing great energy, enthusiasm, and executive 
ability, he established churches through 'New Jersey, Penn- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 193 

sylvania, and Virginia, and arranged for their care. Through 
his influence a large sum of money was collected in Holland 
and Germany for the establishment of schools among the 
German- Americans of all denominations. To increase the 
interest of the subscribers he wrote a pamphlet in which the 
semi-savage condition of his people was strongly empha- 
sized. This they naturally resented, and the charity schools 
fell rapidly into disrepute. Christopher Sower wrote 
against them as tending towards the establishment of the 
Church of England. Others saw in them a scheme to dis- 
solve the alliance between the Germans and the Quakers, 
and Schlatter became very unpopular, a fate he hardly 
deserved. As a pioneer in the attempt to establish a public 
school system for the province, he possesses a strong claim 
to our regard. He labored hard to induce his people to 
learn and use the English language, and their progress 
would have been more rapid had they heeded his advice. 

What Schlatter was to the German Reformed Church, Henry 
Melchior Muhlenberg was to the Lutherans. Equally well 
educated, equally energetic, with superior tact, he supplied 
exactly what was needed to discipline the vast masses of 
his illiterate and indifferent countrymen. The Lutherans 
were the last of the three waves which peopled Pennsyl- 
vania with Germans. The first brought the sects, the second 
the reformed members. So rapid was their immigration that 
they probably exceeded all others in revolutionary times. 
In 1749 alone, twelve thousand German immigrants landed 
in Philadelphia. 

Muhlenberg was born in 1711, of a noble but impover- 
ished family. After completing his university career and 
a careful study of American conditions, he came over in 
1742. He preached everywhere to men and women hungry 
for Lutheran teaching, and everywhere the inherent re- 
ligiousness of the German sprang into life. Many who 
could read and write, held their ponderous family Bibles as 
their greatest treasure. Such needed only the touch of 
Muhlenberg's magnetic spirit to waken them to their duties 
as churchmen. He also brought the Swedes into the fold. 



104 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and reclaimed some of those whom the fervor of Zinzendorf 
had led away into Moravianism. It was supposed for a time 
that an alliance would be made with the Episcopal Church, 
whose constitution and liturgy were similar. Altogether, 
Muhlenberg stands out as one of the great figures of pre- 
revolutionary times. 

Besides the English and German, the third important 
element in Pennsylvania's provincial population is what is 
commonly called the Scotch-Irish. In the reign of Eliza- 
beth and the early Stuarts, and the protectorate of Cromwell, 
a large amount of land was devastated and the inhabitants 
destroyed in the north of Ireland. To people the country, 
there emigrated or were moved from Scotland and England 
a number of Protestant peoi)le, whose descendants still con- 
stitute the prevailing influence in Ulster. They were Pres- 
byterians in religion, and in turn had to suffer from the 
attempts to force Episcopacy upon them by the later Stuarts. 
Their leases of land made upon their arrival, running out 
about the same time, they concluded to pack their movable 
possessions and cross the seas. All the provinces received 
them. Of those who came to Pennsylvania some stopped 
in the east, and were merged with the English Presbyterians 
of Philadelphia and near-by counties. But the greater num- 
ber pressed for the frontiers outside the Germans, and made 
homes for themselves in the woods. As frontiers went west- 
ward they moved with them, finally crossing the mountains 
and covering nearly all the western part of the State. 

They were energetic, self-reliant people, admirably 
adapted to meet the hardships of settlement. Finding some 
of the best lands reserved by the proprietaries and remaining 
unused, they placed their cabins ujion them, and were not 
easily dispossessed. As for Indian claims they seemed too 
flimsy to be worthy of attention, and many an altercation 
arose over the cool assurance of ownership on the part of 
these determined settlers. Several times they were driven 
off by the state authorities, but their absence lasted only 
till the withdrawal of the troops. 

Nor did their contempt for the Indians extend only to 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 195 

appropriating their lands. They had no faith in the subsi- 
dizing pacific policy of the Quaker. To them the Indians 
were a treacherous, worthless race, to be tolerated while 
they remained at peace, to be treated as they themselves 
treated the whites in time of war. Up to 1755 there was no 
occasion for fighting them, for the Quaker policy kept the 
frontiers quiet, except in sporadic cases, which were at- 
tended to by the civil authorities and the chiefs of the tribes. 
But when Braddock went down before Pittsburg, and, insti- 
gated by the French, the Indians swarmed along the ex- 
posed boundary, the Scotch- Irish met the first fury of the 
attack. They then vowed death to every Indian, could not 
use language hard enough against the Quakers who con- 
trolled the assembly, and proceeded to defend themselves. 
To many of them, living on Old Testament morality, the 
commands of extermination addressed to Joshua were vital 
against their red enemies. 

These were, however, only the excrescences. The great 
body of them were temperate. God-fearing people, who 
sought good homes, and loved peace well enough to fight for 
it. They set up schools and colleges, and organized churches. 
Their pastors were zealous men of pure lives, and devoted 
to their work. While naturally unsuccessful in converting 
Indians, they added whites in large numbers to their con- 
gregations. 

Politically they were the antipodes of the Quakers. They 
were combative in their nature, dogmatic in their theology, 
vigorous and active in speaking and living. The Quakers 
were pacific from principle and policy, universal in their 
theory of religion, and individually contemplative and re- 
tiring in their habit of life. 

The Presbyterians, with all their opposition to Quaker 
methods, valued the religious liberty which the charter of 
Penn granted, and strenuously opposed the plan to turn the 
government over to the crown. They did not succeed in 
preventing, in 1764, the scheme being carried through the 
assembly by a large majority, and, in fact, were consistently 
beaten up to the time of the Revolution, while they were 



196 HISTOKV OF PENXSYLVANIA. 

all the time growing stronger, and were recognized as the 
most potent of the political enemies of the prevailing party. 
The Eevolution, which they favored to a man, placed them 
in complete control of the province. Many of the strongest 
men in political life dnring and since this war have been 
descendants of these Scotch-Irish settlers. 

The Episcopalians never constituted a wave of immigra- 
tion. Liberty to establish a parish whenever there were 
twenty applicants was reserved in the charter to William 
Penn. This was not taken advantage of till 1695, when 
Christ Church was established. The interesting building, 
still standing on Second Street, Philadelphia, was begun in 
1727, though the steeple was not completed for about thirty 
years. The members of the church were not numerous, but 
by reason of their education, wealth, and social standing 
they were always influential. Many of the Keithian Quakers 
ultimately went over to them, and a constant but gentle 
stream of the wealthier Friends of the sect that entirely 
ruled out ritual, made them some accretions. But they 
lacked the evangelizing zeal of the Presbyterians among 
the white peoj^le, and of the Moravians among the Indians. 

About 1700, under Judge Quarry, they began a season of 
hostility against the government, using the Quaker scrui:)les 
against war and oaths as the means of harassing them, in 
the hopes that the j^roprietary government could be over- 
turned and Pennsylvania made a crown colony with an es- 
tablished church. Later, however, when the second genera- 
tion of Penns joined their church and appointed the judges 
and members of the council from their members they and 
the Quakers changed sides. They became warm adherents 
of the proprietaries and their prerogatives, and vigorously 
opposed the petition to England in 1764, carried by the in- 
fluence of Franklin and the Quakers. As the Eevolution 
approached they and the Quakers drew nearer together, and 
were generally opposed to radical proceedings. Many of 
them were loyalists during the war, and as a political power 
they disappeared with the Friends in 1776. 

The only other English denomination in the Philadelphia 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 197 

neighborhood was the Baptist. This was not sufficiently 
I numerous to act as a political power of consequence, there 
being only about three thousand of them in 1776. 

The Connecticut settlers of Wyoming, not yet through 
with their troubles, brought with them their New England 
schools and their Congregational faith. Their position was 
as yet too hazardous to enable them to have much influence 
outside their own families. 

Catholics were few in number, there being about two 

thousand at the time of the Eevolution. The Quakers 

' intended to give them the religious liberty they did to all 

others, but a protest arose in England. The tests imposed 

by English authority kept them from office and the right to 

hold corporate property, but, unlike the most of the other 

colonies, Pennsylvania permitted them unobtrusively to 

*] carry on their religious services in her chief city. 

V 

When the Friends settled Philadelphia there were a few 
attempts to start schools under sanction of the council. 
Nothing, however, of a permanent character resulted till 
' Penn, in 1689, directed the establishment of a public gram- 
mar school. This was given its final charter in 1711, and 
still exists. It was intended to be, for the times, a high- 
^ grade school, corresponding to the English grammar schools 
. then being founded by charitable people in England. To 
provide for the more extended elementary education of the 
poor, branches were established over the city, and had this 
process been continued sufficiently a complete system of 
public schools would have resulted. 

The central school for boys was on Fourth Street below 

^ Chestnut, and by the time of the Eevolution there were about 

^ eight branches. The Fourth Street school was limited in 

size and taught Latin and Greek, but not much else. The 

branches were elementary, some of them quite primary, and 

were for both boys and girls, many of both sexes being 

admitted free. 

I Almost immediately the Friends began the building of 

l| schools over the country districts near their meeting-houses. 



108 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The Yearly Meeting advised this repeatedly, urging that 
every member be given an opportunity to receive an ele- 
mentary education under carefully guarded moral influences. 
These schools were generally open to others on the same 
terms as to Friends, but in non-Friendly communities no 
schools were set up. It is probable that forty or fifty 
of these country schools existed by the time of the Eevolu- 
tion, and illiterate Quakers were almost unknown. The 
denomination lacked, however, opportunities for higher 
education and suffered from the lack. Their doctrine, that 
education was not necessary to the ministry, became, in some 
cases, a doctrine that it was not useful, and this belief, while 
not universal, acted as a restraint upon higher educational 
efforts. The Friends who were higlily educated were Eng- 
lish universitj^ men of the first generations or self-taught 
men, often botanists or mathematicians, whose training was 
gained in spite of unfavorable surroundings, or the few 
who had the classical opportunities at the ''Public School" 
of Philadelphia. The most noted of the head- masters of 
this school was Eobert Proud, whose History of Pennsyl- 
vania, written about the time of the Pevolutiouary War, is 
the most reliable account of the colony. 

The Episcopalians set up a school in connection with 
Christ Church almost immediately. Parish churches and 
schools were so intimately associated in England that it was 
quite natural after Christ Church was founded in 1694, to 
connect with it a school. Schools at Oxford near Philadel- 
phia, at Chester, at Marcus Hook, at Radnor, and at Pequea 
in Lancaster County soon followed. The Academy, which 
afterwards became the University of Pennsylvania, while 
not denominational, was largely founded and maintained by 
Episcopal influence. 

The Presbyterians brought with them from their mother 
church in Scotland the ideas both of general and advanced 
education. They wished to have schools in every parish, 
and their ministers to be not only godly but learned men. 
A church and a school-house were early joint objects of 
concern in every settlement. In the school the catechism 



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HISTORY OF PENxMSYLVANIA. 199 

was taught, and the school- master and the pastor were often 
the same person. Hence the little schools extended with 
the wave of Presbyterian settlement, first around Phila- 
delphia, then out through western Chester County, and 
along the Susquehanna River to Paxton and Donegal, over 
into the fertile Cumberland Valley, and finally through the 
western half of the State. In many of these instruction 
was gratuitous, the bills being paid by the synod. 

Besides these elementary schools several academies of a 
higher grade were founded. In 1741 Dr. Francis Alison 
opened New London Academy, Chester County, from which 
went out an unusual number of remarkable men of revolu- 
tionary times, including John Dickinson, Charles Thomson, 
and Chief Justice McKean, and James Smith and George 
Reed, signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

Still more noted was the ' ' Log College' ' of Neshaminy, 
Bucks County, established in 1726 by the Rev. William 
Tennent. He was a fine scholar and a vigorous man, and 
made a marked impression on his students, notwithstanding 
the single room of twenty feet square which constituted the 
"College" building. From this humble abode went an 
influence which set up schools and churches in various 
quarters, and, indirectly, the great Presbyterian College at 
Princeton, New Jersey. 

The German immigrants included a few highly learned 
men, and a large number of illiterate people. Great efforts 
were made to educate these, but the magnitude of the 
movement made it impossible to supply the necessary 
teachers, and it was not till about 1740, through the efforts 
of Zinzendorf, Muhlenberg, and Schlatter that anything 
like efficiency was introduced. Even after this, when a 
large amount of European money was at the disposal of the 
reformers, the incoming throngs of poorly provided immi- 
grants were too great a drain on the educational purses. 
The "Sects" were in early days better educated than the 
"Church people," having smaller problems in this line to 
manage. 

Sower was interested with other Germantown people, many 



200 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

of them Germans, in establishing, in 1761, the Academy on 
School Lane, which is still prospering. A German de- 
partment was organized, which soon outgrew the English. 
Germans were also interested in the College, afterwards 
University, of Pennsylvania, as will be described. It is 
probably unjust to ascribe to them opposition to education 
as such, certainly not to elementary education. Some were 
discouraged by the difficulty of the problem confronting 
them, and some feared to enter into movements which might 
diminish the love of their children for the German language 
and habits. Political questions also seem to have been 
mingled with the educational, and a struggle whether the 
Quakers should retain or the proprietaries gain the German 
vote created suspicions that the offers to educate them were 
not wholly disinterested. 

The University of Pennsylvania began its life under other 
names in 1749. Franklin issued his ''Proposals relating to 
the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," and twenty-four 
citizens of various denominations, mainly Episcopalians, 
formed themselves into a board and adopted regulations. 
They themselves contributed about two thousand pounds, 
and this was increased by other donations and the pro- 
ceeds of lotteries. Franklin was the first president. The 
''Academy and Charitable School" purchased a building on 
Fourth Street below Arch, erected for the great preacher, 
George Whitefield. The Academy immediately set a higher 
standard than any other institution then existing in the 
province. Franklin did not approve of Latin and Greek, 
but they were added to the curriculum, as were also Logic 
and Natural and Moral Philosophy, and in 1755 its name 
and functions were enlarged so that it became "The College, 
Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia." 

Within ten years the number of students had risen to 
nearly four hundred, many of whom were attracted from 
the West Indies and other colonies. 

The first provost, to whose ability, acquirements, and 
energy the institution owes its early success, was Dr. William 
Smith. He came to Pennsylvania in 1754, and was immedi- 




PROVOST WILLIAM SMITH. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 201 

ately employed to teach the higher branches. His charac- 
ter made such an impression that he was placed at its head^ 
and from that day till after the Eevolution he was the per- 
sonification of the college, as well as a doughty combatant 
in the political controversies of the day. He was favorable 
to the American contention till the outbreak of the war, 
and afterwards his sympathies were supposed to be with the 
crown. With him were associated Dr. Francis Alison and 
Ebenezer Kinnersley, a Baptist minister, who was connected 
with Franklin in his electrical experiments. 

In 1765 was added the medical department, the first one 
in America, and which soon, through the learning of its 
professors, ranked with the famous medical schools of 
Europe. 

There was also an attempt to make the new institution 
the centre of an educational movement among the Germans. • 
Dr. Smith received benefactions in England to educate a\ 
number of Pennsylvania Germans in his college, and to aidy 
them in establishing schools throughout the province. Muh- 
lenberg and Schlatter were in sympathy with the project, but 
Sower, seeing in it a scheme to deprive the German of his 
language and his religion, raised his powerful voice against 
it. Through his j^aper, read and respected from Maine to 
Georgia, he issued warning after warning. Thus, while the 
trustees were planning the system. Sower was making the 
whole movement impossible by appealing to sentiments of 
German nationality, and a great scheme failed, partly be- 
cause there were denominational and political movements, as 
well as humanitarian, back of it, and partly because the Ger- 
man refused to give up his inheritance from the fatherland. 

Thus Pennsylvania approached the Eevolution with one^ 
institution of high grade, framed on broad and liberal lines, ( 
under wise management sure to have a great future, already 7 
doing a great work in education, and with a' score of acad- \ 
emies and a large number of elementary schools founded by J 
the denominations. To these must be added a few excellent 
private schools, and we have the educational resources of 
the province. There were great gaps in the system, many 



202 KTSTOHY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

of the boys and still more of the girls could not be educated, 
for the schools were distant and costl5\ The State had done 
nothing, the churches everything. Pennsylvania was yet 
to learn that sectarian activity could not be depended on 
for a complete educational system. 

Whatever her educational disadvantages, the number of 
men of high standing in science, letters, and government 
was extremely creditable to her intellectual life. Her free 
institutions were a great encouragement to free thought, 
and hence to the development of greatness. There was 
no churchly domination as in Massachusetts, nor was there 
the exclusive attention to questions of government seen in 
Virginia. I^owhere else in the colonies had scientific men 
such deserved reputation. 

Among the early settlers, Thomas Lloyd, James Logan, 
George Keith, David Lloyd, Christopher Taylor, who opened 
a classical school on the island of Tinicum, Kelpius, Pas- 
tor ius, Christopher Dock, the school -master of the Skippack, 
Sower, and Peter Miller, were men of generous culture. 
Logan made the greatest collection of classical literature in 
America, a part of which was finally merged with the Phila- 
delphia Library. He was a Latin author of no mean rank. 

In science, David Eittenhouse is a prominent name. A 
descendant of the old paper manufacturer of the Wissa- 
hickon, he early developed a taste for science and mathe- 
matics. His most conspicuous act was the series of obser- 
vations on the transit of Venus for solar parallax in 1769, 
for which the assembly and various public institutions sup- 
plied the funds. The results were so accurate and complete 
that the reputation of Eittenhouse became world-wide. He 
constructed orreries and other astronomical instruments 
with his own hands, but in later years became involved in 
politics and constitution-making. 

In botany, John Bartram gained an equal reputation. 
The provinces were virgin soil for botanists, and Bartram 
traversed them from Canada to Florida, collecting for him- 
self and his friends, Peter Collinson and Dr. Fothergill, of 
London. His gardens, near Gray's Ferrv, Philadelphia, 




DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 




DR. BENJAMIN RUSH. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 203 

became a great botanical collection, and some of its curiosi- 
ties are still alive in the city park, into which his grounds 
have been converted. 

Many foreigners did not develop their scientific tastes till 
they came to the liberal life of Pennsylvania. Among such 
may be mentioned the ornithologists Wilson and Audubon, 
and the arborist, Thomas Xuttall. Joseph Priestley, the dis- 
coverer of oxygen, found a congenial home here, after being 
persecuted in England. 

We have seen that the first American medical school was 
in Philadelphia. This was amply supported by a line of 
great physicians, among whom may be mentioned Doctors 
Shippen, Bond, and Benjamin Push. 

The artist, Benjamin West, was born of Quaker parents in 
Chester County, where Swarthmore College now stands, in 
1738. His talents were early seen, and he began painting 
portraits in Philadelphia at seventeen years of age. He 
soon went to Europe, and in 1792 became president of the 
Poyal Academy. He never ceased to honor his birthplace, 
and presented to the Pennsylvania Hospital a copy of his 
great picture, — Christ Healing the Sick. 

In statesmanship of the higher sort there may be men- 
tioned the two Lloyds, the twoNorrises, Kinsey, Dickinson, 
Provost Smith, and Charles Thomson. 

But unquestionably the most conspicuous figure of colo- 
nial Pennsylvania was Benjamin Franklin. He brought 
with him from Boston the trade of a printer, a mind im- 
proved by every opportunity, most versatile and available 
talents, indefinite ambitions, and an entire absence of pecu- 
niary resources. He had cultivated his style by careful 
study of The Spectator and other standards, and every piece 
of knowledge on any subject was seized, — he is one of the 
best examples in history of a self-made man, two years 
being the extent of his schooling. 

In 1729 he established himself in business and never 
suffered afterwards. In the same year he started his 
^•'Pennsylvania Gazette" as a weekly paper, and in 1732 
appeared the first copy of ''Poor Pichard's Almanac/' full 



204 HISTORY OP' PENNSYLVANIA. 

of pithy and homely proverbs, and interesting material, 
mainly of Franklin's own composition. He sold stationery 
and almost everything which Avould produce money. He 
succeeded so well that in 1748, at the age of forty- two, he 
was able to retire from business with a competence. 

In 1736 he was made clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly 
and entered upon his j^olitical career. All the while he 
was thinking about science on the practical side. He 
founded a little society of his friends called the Junta, 
where scientific questions were discussed and scientific 
discoveries announced. He was the first to notice that 
northeast storms moved against the wind from the west. 
He saw the wastefulness of the open firei)lace of the prov- 
inces, and the unhealthfulness of the close German stove, 
and invented the ^'Franklin stove," or ^'Pennsylvania Fire- 
place,'' as he called it, which is as nearly perfect for heating 
and ventilating purposes as any since devised. He became 
interested in electricity, and in June, 1752, performed his 
famous experiment with a kite which proved the electrical 
nature of lightning. He wrote this in a private letter to 
Peter Collinson of London, who published it, and Franklin's 
reputation became world-wide. He investigated phospho- 
rescense in the Gulf Stream, machines for steadying boats, 
the proper shape for chimneys, — indeed, wherever he 
turned his luminous intellect there came forth inventions 
and suggestions of a practical character. 

But perhaps his most useful work was in the founding 
of institutions. We have seen his efforts in connection 
with the early life of the University of Pennsylvania. The 
Pennsylvania Hospital, the American Philosophical Society, 
and the Philadelphia Library, owe their origins largely to 
his exertions. The idea of the Pennsylvania Hospital ap- 
pears to have originated with Dr. Thomas Bond about 1750. 
He found, however, he was unable to do anything without 
Franklin's aid. The Friends had made several attempts, 
beginning about 1709, to start a hospital for the sick and 
insane, but they had not matured into anything more than 
local and temporary helps. They entered heartily into this 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 205 

movement and constituted a considerable majority of its 
contributors and managers. The first president of the board 
was Joshua Crosby, who was soon succeeded by Franklin. 
The Legislature made an appropriation, though most of the 
money was raised from i^rivate sources. Some houses were 
leased to provide quarters for needy cases, and in 1756 
the new buildings were in such a state of completion as 
to justify their use. From that year to this, with some 
crippling during revolutionary times, it has carried on its 
beneficent work. In the early days it was as much the 
pride of the Quakers as the College was of the Church of 
England people. It was the first hospital in America. 

The American Philosophical Society was formed by the 
union of two other societies in 1769. It was originally a 
benevolent project to extend a knowledge of useful arts. 
Franklin, Ritteuhouse, Thomas Jefferson, and other illus- 
trious men were presidents, and it still meets in its building 
in Independence Square, an honorable body of scholars^ 

The Junta, Franklin's club for general discussions, had 
collected a little library as early as 1731. Logan's advice 
was taken as to the purchase of books, and Peter Collinson 
expended the money in London. This was the beginning 
of the Philadelphia Library. It grew by donations as well 
as purchase, and was housed for a time in the State house. 
One by one other libraries were merged with it. It never 
had a home of its own till 1790, the year of Franklin's 
death, at which time a building was erected on Fifth 
Street, and the Loganian Library was added to it. It now 
owns two fine buildings in Philadelphia, and two hundred 
thousand volumes. 

In 1719 the first newspaper, ^^The American Weekly 
Mercury" was published in Philadelphia by Andrew Brad- 
ford. In 1728 Keimer, Franklin's employer, started a 
second, to which he gave the modest title of ^'Universal 
Instructor in all Arts & Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette." 
Franklin bought this, and extinguished the first part of 
the title, as also the habit of reprinting articles from the 
Encyclopaedia. Sower's paper, started in 1739, had, as we 



208 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

have seen, wide cireulation and influence. A number of 
others, which were mostly short lived, were started just 
prior to the Revolution. 

Philadelphia, even in early days, was noted for the plain- 
ness and uniformity of its architecture. A few buildings 
still existing stand out as exponents of the good taste of 
colonial designers. One of these is Christ Church, on Second 
Street. Another is the Pennsylvania Hospital, on Pine 
Street. But the building which of all others will always 
possess the greatest interest on account of simple and 
appropriate architecture, as well as for the important events 
of which it was the home, is the State house. Its present 
restoration is intended to renew the appearance and con- 
dition of 1776. 

In 1729 the assembly, which had been meeting in the 
little court-house in the centre of Market Street at Second, 
appropriated two thousand pounds to put up a public build- 
ing for the prmance. There was the usual difference about 
site and plan, and both were finally decided by Andrew 
Hamilton, speaker of the assembly, to whose good taste we 
are indebted for the arrangement and appearance of the 
State house. 

In 173G the building was first used, though not completed 
for some time after. The bell was ordered from London by 
a committee, of which Isaac ]!^orris was chairman, in 1751. 
When it arrived, it was set up, and cracked '^by the 
stroke of the clapper." Two workmen of Philadelphia 
offered to recast it, putting in more copper. After two at- 
tempts they produced a satisfactory result. 

In the State house sat the Pennsylvania Assembly and 
the provincial court. Here many of those stirring popular 
meetings which inaugurated the Eevolution were held. 
Here the Declaration of Independence was debated, passed, 
and signed. Here through the trying days of the Revolu- 
tion met the Continental Congress, except when it was flying 
over the country to escape British invaders. Here were 
signed the articles of confederation, and here met the im- 
mortal convention which drafted the Constitution of the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 207 

United States. Here also the convention of the State of 
Pennsylvania ratified that instrument, and here met the body 
which framed the second constitution of the State in 1790. 
There were besides banquets, receptions, and committee 
meetings without number, i^apers conceived and written 
which have made the history of the nation, speeches de- 
livered by all the honored statesmen of the last half of 
the eighteenth century. As a treasure-house of glorious 
memories it is dedicated "by the citizens of Philadelphia 
to their fellow-countrymen of the United States." 

The chief industry was, of course, agriculture. The Ger- 
mans were excellent farmers, neat, thrifty, and industrious, 
but rather conservative. On the death of a land- owner his 
estate would be divided among his sons, each one adding a 
large barn and a small house to his subdivision. Women 
worked with the men in the field, and every piece of human 
labor was utilized. They seldom hired workers, for the 
family was sufficient, and neatness and bountiful care of all 
stock were characteristic. 

The farmers raised enough for the province, and could 
furnish for exportation considerable quantities of corn, 
wheat, flour, beef, and pork. ^ 

Commerce was active, and large fortunes were rapidly ^ 
made in Philadelphia. In 1773 about eight hundred vessels . 
entered and cleared, and carried produce valued at seven 
hundred thousand pounds. Some of this was made up of 
re-shipments from the West Indies. 

England made all she could out of this commerce. All 
colonial trade must be in English-built ships and belong to 
Englishmen, and in many cases there was a prohibition on 
any trade which did not pass through an English port. 
Colonies were to be used for the benefit of the mother 
country. 

The same policy was a bar to manufacturing enterprises. 
The colonists could find work for their mechanics in the 
rapidly growing cities, and the constant demand for wagons, 
farm implements, and furniture. They also attempted to 



208 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

start manufactories for their flax and wool, but here the 
parent country stepped in with a prohibition on exportation. 
In 1719 Parliament declared that ''erecting manufactories I 
in the colonies tends to lessen the dependence on Great 
Britain." What was especially grievous to Pennsylvania 
was a restriction on the manufacture of iron and steel, though 
pig-iron could be exported. Thus, while her rapidly in- 
creasing population made great industries possible for home 
demand, there was a continual clog on enterprise in the 
English laws. 

In the troubles which preceded the Eevolution, when non- 
importation of English goods was resorted to, to drive the 
English government to terms, many new manufactories were 
projected. But the fever would pass away with the ob- 
noxious laws, and the enterprise of the people would again 
turn to agriculture, the weaving of cloth, and the making 
of imi^lements for home consumption. Thus matters con- 
tinued till the Eevolution (while it lasted destructive to 
enterprise) broke the bands which England had tied, and 
opened a great career of prosperity in manufactures for 
Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

1776-1790. 

Council of Safety — State Constitution of 1776 — Revolutionary Party 
in Power — Loyalists and Peace Men — Campaign of 1776 — Battle of 
Trenton — Campaign of 1777 — Battles of Brandywine and German- 
town — Valley Forge — British in Philadelphia — Evacuation of Phila- 
delphia — Arnold — Carlisle and Roberts — Riots in the City — Attack 
on the College — Wyoming Massacre and Campaign of Sullivan 
— Yorktown — Dickinson and Smith restored to Favor — Robert 
Morris — Penns bought out — Slavery Abolished — Revolt of the 
Continentals — Colleges — Franklin President — Constitution of the 
United States — Pennsylvania ratifies. 

The regular authorities of the province under the old 
charter, while probably representing the actual sentiment 
of the majority, were fast being pushed aside by the more 
active revolutionary party. The Council of Safety, by 
general consent of this party, was gradually absorbing the 
functions of government. This extra-constitutional body 
could only be justified by temporary necessities, and the 
Revolutionists were anxious to have a more solid basis of 
government. This they secured by their new constitution. 

When the Constitutional Convention assembled it be- 
came the governing power of the colony, appointing the 
delegates to Congress and declaring Pennsylvania an in- 
dependent State. It attended to the organization of the 
Associators, and taxed heavily non-combatants. Its presi- 
dent was Franklin, and besides him its most conspicuous 
member was the astronomer Rittenhouse. The main work 
appears to have been done by a Scotch school- master, James 
Cannon, an Irishman, George Bryan, and a free Quaker, 
Timothy Matlack. 

The other members were not extraordinary in their capa- 
bilities. The resulting constitution, which was to go into 
effect in ]N^ovember, 1776, without being submitted to a 

14 209 



210 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

vote of the people, was an experimental contrivance, and 
had a life of only fourteen years. It, however, placed the 
State, as we must now call it, in the complete control of 
the friends of the Revolution, and made harmony between 
its officers and Congress. 

After the usual declarations of rights, the constitution 
provided for a single legislative house, as heretofore, to be 
called the General Assembly, to be elected annually by 
every freeman of twenty- one or over who had paid taxes 
during the past year. They had the usual privileges of 
legislative assemblies of the time ; sitting on their own 
adjournments, judging the qualifications of their own 
members, instituting impeachments, and so on. The text 
was simplified, and, of course, contained no reference to the 
English government. It required from officials only an 
expression of a belief in God and in the inspiration of the 
Old and ]S"ew Testaments, thus for the first time opening 
the doors to Catholics, Jews, and Deists. At first represen- 
tation was to be by counties, but as soon as a list of taxa- 
bles should be made out this should be the basis. 

The executive body, the "Supreme Executive Council," 
was to consist of twelve members, one elected by each of 
the eleven counties, and one by the City of Philadelphia. 
Its president and vice-president were to be chosen from its 
number at a joint meeting of council and assembly, and 
by a proc-ess of rotation each member might serve for three 
years, and be ineligible for the next two elections. This 
council appointed the judges and all officers not elected, 
and had the right to grant reprieves, pardons, and licenses. 
The head of the State was its president, who had very little 
power. The fear of autocracy, characteristic of the times, 
is strikingly shown by this arrangement. 

All officers must declare their allegiance to the State. 
Foreigners had all the privileges of natives, except that 
they could not hold office for two years. A school, or 
schools, were to be supported at public expense in every 
county. 

Every seven years "The Council of Censors" was to be 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 211 

elected, two from each city and county, who should hold 
office for one year. They were to inquire if the constitu- 
tion had been observed, if the legislative and executive 
officers had done their duty, if the taxes had been properly 
levied and collected, and the laws duly executed. When 
the constitution needed revision they were authorized, after 
due notice, to call a convention. 

The principal defects of this constitution as compared 
with others which were adopted about this time, were found 
in the provisions for a single legislative body and a multiple 
executive. It was more liberal in the matter of tests than 
the Penn Charter of 1701, in which respect it went back to 
Penn's original ideas ; and the same may be said of the 
penal system enacted by the assembly in response to its di- 
rections. The most important advance was the public pro- 
vision for education. The new Council of Censors proved 
itself an unnecessary and troublesome body. 

Its first meeting was in 1783, when it organized, and a 
year later made a lengthy report, to which, however, a large 
minority dissented. Composed of two members from each 
county, and requiring a two- thirds majority to call a con- 
vention to amend the constitution, it practically placed the 
power in the hands of a few from the smaller counties. 
These were satisfied with the constitution as it was, and 
were thus able to defeat all changes. The Council of Censors 
proved thus to be an extremely conservative, and in that 
time of rapid changes, a mischievous body. It did, how- 
ever, succeed in pointing out great weaknesses in the pre- 
vailing system and in its execution, and in showing the 
low standard which prevailed among the holders of public 
offices in many instances. By the time of the next meet- 
ing, in 1790, the State was about adopting a new constitu- 
tion, and in it there was no provision for such a council. 

The constitution also authorized the reduction of the 
number of offences punishable by death. The legislature, 
however, did not immediately act on the matter, and so late 
as 1784 a man was hanged in Eeading for stealing nine 
dollars. The sentiment was growing, and after the Revo- 



212 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

lutiou F. A. Muhlenberg and George Eoss would never 
vote to execute any criminal. The penalty after 1 786 was 
confined to treason and murder in the first degree, thus 
going back to the conditions existing j^rior to 1718. 

The constitution and its enforcement threw the whole 
power of the State of Pennsylvania into the hands of 
the radical revolutionary party, who now called them- 
selves the Constitutionalists. The opposition, the Anti-Con- 
stitutionalists or Republicans, was made up of various ele- 
ments, — the old proprietary partj^, who mostly in time went 
over to the royalists, the Quakers, who withdrew entirely 
from public affairs and took no part except as sufferers, and 
the moderate men, like Dickinson, Robert Morris, and 
Mifflin. These last were friends of the Revolution, but, 
having property and standing, were alarmed at the violence, 
disregard of civil rights, and precipitancy of the Constitu- 
tionalists, and led the active portion of the opposition 
party. Thomas Wharton, Jr., was the first president of the 
council, but he, dying soon, was succeeded by Joseph Reed 
in 1778 and by William Moore in 1781. 

The constitution was perhaps the most democratic instru- 
ment of its kind ever written in America. Almost all 
power was placed in the hands of the annually elected as- 
sembly, while the Executive Council and the Council of 
Censors were supi^osed to represent the equality of the 
counties. The partisan conflict raged fiercely around it. 
Even after it was adopted, attacks on it did not cease. There 
were continual efforts at revision, which were foiled by the 
exigencies of war and the stubbornness of its defenders. For 
and against it the party lines were drawn, and this condi- 
tion continued till 1790. When the Federal Constitution 
came l)efore the people for adoption, antipathies already 
formed dictated the attitude of the people of Pennsylvania 
towards this great instrument. 

The situation was further complicated by an enactment 
of the new assembly, requiring every one to take an oath 
or affirmation of allegiance to the new constitution and 
abjuration to George III. The Moravians, Schwenckfelders, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 213 

Dunkers, and Mennonites refused to take this, and instruc- 
tions were given that it should not be offered them unless 
they showed some signs of disaffection. The Quakers, who 
^ere numerous in and around Philadelphia, in accordance 
with their notions of the illegality of the new government 
and their intentions of neutrality, also refused, and were 
fined and imprisoned. Many moderate and hesitating peo- 
ple were brought to a sharp decision, and some went over 
to the British. These tests were not repealed at the close 
of the war. They disfranchised a large number of the best 
educated and most wealthy citizens, leaving the suffrage in 
some districts in the hands of less able men. The result 
was that in efficiency and moderation the government was 
distinctly inferior to former times and to the years following 
1789 ; there were many honest and patriotic men, but they 
could not always control the violent and mercenary element. 
So, rent with internal dissensions, the war closed in upon 
Pennsylvania. 

The British late in 1776 made a determined effort to take 
Philadelphia. This city was the home of the Continental 
Congress, and its capture might be supposed to discourage 
the Americans, and thwart any hopes of an alliance with 
the French. In complete command of New York and vicin- 
ity, they set out across Xew Jersey. Washington's little 
army of three thousand ragged soldiers retreated before 
them and placed the Delaware between themselves and the 
invaders. Mifflin was sent to Philadelphia to stir up some 
aid. The Continental Congress appealed in all directions, 
but were powerless to direct anything. The Council of 
Safety urged the Associators who had been so long drilling 
to turn out. The new assembly offered rewards for enlisted 
men, and fifteen hundred of the Pennsylvania militia were 
soon on the march to re-enforce Washington. The situation 
seemed almost desperate. The American army, made up of 
men enlisted for short periods, was continually changing. 
The congress could only appeal to the States, and the hearts 
of many people, discouraged by the apparently hopeless 
task of fighting the forces of a great empire, were already 



214 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

repentant and faint-hearted. The genius of Washington 
turned the day. 

An advance detachment of Hessians had encamx)ed at 
Trenton. On the night of Christmas, a night of intense 
cold and a blinding sno\Y-storm, which deterred some of 
his generals, Washington led his troops through the 
floating ice of the Delaware above the town, and at day- 
break attacked the Hessian camj). The victory was com- 
plete. Not an American was killed, but about one thou- 
sand prisoners and much arms and ammunition rewarded 
the courageous Americans. Washington recrossed the 
Delaware, Philadelphia was for a time saved, and the 
friends of independence felt renewed hope. Congress re- 
turned from Baltimore, whither it had fled on the approach 
of the enemy, and Washington had the satisfaction, after a 
little rest, of again leading his army over the Delaware, 
chasing the British across New Jersey, and seeing them em- 
bark for New York. 

Robert Morris went from house to house in Philadelphia 
borrowing money for the army, and Washington was granted 
the power he long had desired to enlist men himself and ap- 
point the officers. While the Americans were desperately 
poor, they had lost no courage when the next attack of 
the British on Philadelphia was made. They could afford 
to celebrate the first anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence with bonfires and rejoicing. 

It was for a long time doubtful how this attack would 
proceed, and Washington remained in northern New Jersey 
in anxious expectation through the early months of 1777. 
Howe showed his purpose later by evacuating North Jersey 
and collecting a fleet of transports in New York harbor. 
On July 23 they sailed, and after beating about the mouths 
of the Delaware and Chesapeake, on August 25 they landed 
at the head of Elk River, a branch of the latter bay, fifty- 
four miles southwest of Philadelphia. It was a well ap- 
pointed and thoroughly disciplined army of over seventeen 
thousand men which followed Sir William Howe on this 
expedition to the seat of what little central power the united 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 215 

colonies possessed. Against this, Washington, even when 
;e-enforced by all the militia the power of the Congress or 
)f the States could call in by appeal and promises, could 
lot command more than eleven thousand five hundred men, 
nferior in every respect in drill and equipment. 

By this time Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga, and 
inder the impulse of this success many Frenchmen had 
i^olunteered in the American army. Among these was the 
Marquis Lafayette, who became one of Washington's most 
3f&cient and trusted generals. The State government, though 
iisliked by a majority of the citizens, did its best, and 
through its Board of War offered bounties for volunteers 
md equipped its troops as it could. With all the forces he 
30uld command, Washington, to encourage the friends of 
the cause, marched southward through the streets of Phila- 
ielphia with sprigs of green to conceal the lack of uniform, 
and, after some skirmishing, posted his army on the east 
side of Brandy wine Creek, at Chadd's Ford, and awaited 
Dhe approach of the British. 

Howe marched to Kennett Square, where his force divided. 
Sending on a small detachment to engage the Americans at 
Chadd's Ford, the main body turned northward and crossed 
the Brandywine, about four miles above. Washington had 
in idea of this, and wished to attack the enemy opposite 
tiim, a project which might have changed the fortunes of 
the day. But deceived by conflicting rumors he remained 
stationary until the main body was approaching his flank, 
rhen hastily swinging about some of his troops to the Bir- 
mingham Meeting-House, the main battle was here fought 
from behind the grave-yard walls and on the hills to the 
south. The Americans were defeated with a loss of about 
one thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, while 
the British lost half as manj^ Lafayette was wounded ; 
Washington retreated in good order to Chester, and thence 
to Philadelphia. 

To take Philadelphia Howe must cross the Schuylkill, 
rhis he could not do at the city. The floating bridges 
were removed, all boats were moved to the city side, and 



216 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the river could not be forded. He must strike higher up, 
and march across Chester County towards Swedes Ford, 
now Norristown. Anthony Wayne, one of Washington's 
most daring and efficient generals, was encamped near 
Paoli, his native place, and on the night of September 20, 
he was surprised, the British killing with their bayonets 
three hundred of his men, the rest mostly escaping. This 
is called in history the Paoli massacre. 

Washington was ready for a new battle, but a heavy rain- 
storm wet the ammunition of both armies, and the fight 
did not come off. A few days' manoeuvring enabled Howe to 
cross the Schuylkill at Swedes Ford, and Philadelphia was 
taken. Howe marched leisurely in through Germantown, 
and entered the city on the 26th. 

In the mean time there was great excitement in Philadel- 
phia. The Congress fled northward, and by a circuitous 
route reached Lancaster, where they set up their government. 
The State authorities followed them, and this little inland 
town became for a time the capital of the United States, 
and of the State. Before leaving, the Congress had advised 
the arrest of leading royalists and of any who would be 
likely to obstruct the American cause. The out-and-out 
Tories, like Galloway and the Aliens, had already joined the 
British army. Those arrested under order of Congress were 
mostly lukewarm and neutral people, about half of whom, 
including Provost Smith, gave the required promises of 
allegiance, and were released. The rest, mostly Friends, 
were arbitrarily sentenced to banishment, all the while 
stoutly protesting their civil rights. They were carried to 
Winchester, Virginia, and kept till spring, when they were 
released and treated with courtesy and some approach to 
apology, for no act which would aid the British could be 
justly charged upon them. 

The British retained their occupancy of the city till the 
following summer. The first step was to obtain provi- 
sions. Washington's troops commanded the country, and, 
save for an occasional foray and the secret admission of 
farmers' wagons, not much could be gained from this side. 




GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 217 

The forts below the city, held by Americans, prevented the 
approach of all vessels, and if these could be held, it seemed 
probable that the large British army would be starved out. 
The attack and defence of these forts were desperate, but 
the superior resources of the British finally prevailed, and 
before the end of November boats were unloading ample 
supplies on the Delaware wharves. 

In the mean time a new attack showed that the American 
army was not crushed. A large part of Howe^s forces did 
not enter the city, but remained at Germantown. On the 
early morning of October 4, Washington, dividing his army, 
marched by three parallel roads to surprise and attack 
this detachment. For a time he carried all before him. 
But a British colonel threw himself with a small company 
into the ^' Chew House," and the central column was de- 
layed by the attem^^t to take this. A heavy fog settled down 
over the armies. The Americans became confused. The 
other divisions had pressed on, but hearing firing in the 
rear were uncertain of their support, and hesitated, and 
mistook each other for the enemj^ Howe was able to collect 
his forces, and Washington, finding the possibility of sur- 
prise over, retreated in good order. 

This was the last fighting, except light skirmishes, of the 
winter. Washington encamped first at Whitemarsh, whither 
Howe marched to attack him, but finding him j)repared, 
he returned to the city without a battle. About December 
20, Washington went to winter quarters at Valley Forge, 
on the Schuylkill, and Howe settled down to a winter of 
comfort and revelry in Philadelphia. He burned the 
country houses of the wealthy Philadelphians to the north 
of the city. He built a line of redoubts from the Delaware 
to the Schuylkill, and thus protected on the only side open 
to land attack, with the rivers free for supplies, he could 
feel at ease. Nevertheless a daring cavalry officer, Allan 
McLane, scoured the country up to the British lines and 
even within them, cut off supplies and set fire to entrench- 
ments. Friends within the city kept Washington informed 
of all excursions. 



218 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVAMA. 

In the main, the British were quiet. The olhcers had 
plenty of money, time, and talent, and Philadelphia society 
was fond of gaietj'. There were dances and improvised 
theatricals, and dinners in profusion. The social leader was 
3Iajor Andre, whose unfortunate fate in connection with 
the treason of Benedict Arnold is well known. Artist, wit, 
and dashing soldier, he was the favorite of all, and it was 
through his efforts and resources that the '' Mischianza," the 
great ball by which the British officers paid their farewell to 
their popular commander. Sir William Howe, was given. 
Howe was succeeded in May by Sir Henry Clinton. 

In the mean time the American army was enduring as 
best it might the sufferings of Valley Forge. The Conti- 
nental currency had diminished in value, so that bushels of 
it were required for camp supplies. The country around 
was foraged to exhaustion. The government departments 
were utterly inefficient. Nearly three thousand of the 
soldiers were barefoot, and none had sufficient clothing. 
Blankets were so scarce that many had to sit up all night 
around the fires, and not a few deserted. There was also a 
movement to remove AV^ashington from his post, and sub- 
stitute Gates, who had received Burgoyne's surrender at 
Saratoga. But the friends of Washington and his own 
self-command and wisdom soon brought confusion to this 
scheme. 

Still worse, if possible, was the condition of the American 
prisoners within the Walnut Street Prison. Starving amidst 
plenty, freezing within sight of abundant warmth, they died 
by the hundreds, and were buried in pits in Washington 
Square. 

The British were gaining nothing by their occupation of 
Philadelphia, and in June decided to evacuate it. They 
crossed the Delaware as quietly as possible, and again 
marched across Xew Jersey. Washington, who knew all 
their movements, was immediately on their heels. The 
Tories went with them with all their baggage. They knew 
the fate awaiting them if they remained. Clinton was faith- 
ful to them, and they and the British army, with the loss of 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 219 

some stragglers, got safely into Xew York. The people of 
Pennsylvania saw no more of the British army within their 
borders to the end of the war, save only the unfortunate 
settlers in the Wyoming Valley. 

Washington left in command at Philadelphia, General 
Arnold, who immediately proceeded to gather in wealth by 
various enterprises, legal and illegal, and to spend it in os- 
tentatious living. He was soon in debt. He had been a 
brilliant ofl&cer in the attack upon Quebec and in the Sara- 
toga fight, and was wounded in the cause. He had claims 
against Congress for exiDenses, which that impecunious and 
ineffi-cient body neglected to settle, and he became soured 
by the apparent lack of recognition of his sufferings and 
services. He was now nearly forty years old, and having 
purchased a fine country seat, and married the belle of the 
city, ''Peggy" Shippen, proceeded to reimburse himself, 
and probably began the correspondence with the British, 
which resulted in his treason. Complaints against his man- 
agement were many and severe. 

Indeed, the city was a scene of confusion and bitter con- 
troversy. Mob law was threatened, and was only averted 
by vigorous military measures. Moderate men were attacked 
as enemies. Somebody must suffer, and as the prominent 
Tories had all escaped, two men, Abraham Carlisle and 
John Roberts, were arrested. Carlisle had accepted a posi- 
tion to grant passes in and out the British lines during their 
occupancy. Roberts, a miller of Lower Merion, had gone 
to Howe as he marched across Chester County and asked a 
detachment to intercept the Virginia prisoners then on their 
way to exile. He was refused, and remained within the 
British lines, acting, perhaps unwillingly, as guide to foraging 
l^arties. They were tried before Chief Justice McKean, and 
found guilty of treason. Hundreds of people of unques- 
tioned character and patriotism testified to their good lives, 
and asked their pardon, and it was generally felt that death 
was too severe a penalty for their crimes, but they were 
' ' hung as an example. ' ' 

Committees appointed at town meetings undertook to 



220 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

regulate prices, to stop the depreciation of paper currency, 
to arrest Tories, Quakers, speculators, and lawyers who de- 
fended criminals. A mob attacked the house of James 
Wilson, a distinguished lawyer and signer of the Declara- 
tion, in which were collected Eobert Morris, General 3Iifflin, 
and other friends. The lower windows were* barricaded, and 
a fight ensued between those inside and those without, in 
which several were killed. A troop of horse finally dis- 
persed the rioters. City government disappeared when the 
charter fell in 1776, and was not resumed till 1789, and the 
affairs of the city were managed by State officials. Though 
the mob was generally kept quiet, except in the matter of 
breaking windows of unpopular citizens, Philadelphia was 
a scene of turbulence and disorder till the end of the war. 

She had indeed been a great sufferer. The beautiful trees 
which had shaded her streets had been cut down by the 
British for firewood. Her finest surrounding residences had 
been burned. Her streets, hitherto kept well cleaned and 
lighted for those days by the exertions of Franklin and 
others, were made the receptacles of all manner of filth. 
Darkness at night encouraged burglary. Many of the best 
houses had been wrecked by mobs. Many were tenantless. 
Laws were but little observed, and it became a question with 
the best citizens whether having rescued their city from the 
British she would fall under the worse domination of crimi- 
nals. Business was topsy-turvy through the inconstant 
currency, of which four hundred dollars might be required 
to procure a pair of boots one day, and four hundred and 
fifty dollars a few days later. Speculators were getting rich, 
honest business men were discouraged. And yet this city 
was the seat of the government to which the French envoy 
and soldiers were now introduced. 

Franklin returned from England in 1775, and was sent 
over, shortly after the Declaration was signed, to France, to 
do there what he could for the cause. His scientific reputa- 
tion, his conversational powers, his republican ways, his 
venerable appearance, his diplomatic skill, and his standard 
of morals, suited the French people exactly, and when in 




JAMES WILSON. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 221 

1777 Burgoyne had surrendered, he was able to negotiate an 
alliance, without which it is questionable if America would 
have succeeded in the war. Monsieur Gerard, the first 
representative of the new alliance, and his suite, reached 
Philadelphia in 1778, and a new series of balls and dances 
were demanded to honor the French guests. 

State finances were in a bad way. The war took money 
and reduced trade. The issues of paper money, in provin- 
cial times kept in moderation with great good judgment, now 
became excessive, and depreciation was inevitable. Xor 
could severe laws establishing prices and making legal ten- 
ders do anything to restore confidence. All was confusion 
and uncertainty. 

The Constitutionalists attacked the college, the last refuge 
of the moderate men. Many of its supporters had been 
royalists. Provost Smith, while aiding the American cause 
in its early stages, had been supposed to grow lukewarm, but 
as an institution it had done nothing traitorous. The Anti- 
Constitutional party, however, derived a certain prestige from 
their connection with it, and this it was resolved to destroy. 
In 1779 the college charter was annulled, and the property 
was given to a new board, to be called the University of the 
State of Pennsylvania. The old trustees, however, kept up 
their organization, and for a time two worthless rival insti- 
tutions, where there was hardly patronage for one, attempted 
to perform the functions of a college. The medical school 
was suspended. The Episcopal Academy, still existing, was 
founded by the friends of the old college, and this state of 
division was continued till 1791, when the college and the 
university were united under the title of the University of 
Pennsylvania. Perhaps something of denomi nationalism 
was cut out of the institution by the attack, and it was made 
more truly representative of the State, but it was an un- 
necessary and unfortunate piece of surgery. 

In another part of the State still sadder scenes were being 
enacted. We have seen that a little body of Connecticut 
settlers had made a pleasant home for themselves in the 
fertile valley of Wyoming. The Six Nations with British 



222 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

allies had threatened it with destruction, and the defeat of 
Burgoyne released them for the bloody work. The most of 
the able-bodied men of the valley were in the Continental 
army, and hearing of the expected attack they asked to be 
allowed to defend their homes. There was some delay, and 
they arrived too late. The old men and the boys, three hun- 
dred in number, went out to meet, under Colonel Zebulon 
Butler, the five hundred British and seven hundred Indians 
of the invading force, knowing full well the fate that awaited 
them if defeated. The result could not be doubted from 
the first. The defenders soon gave way, and the cruel Indian 
massacre followed. Men, women, and children were mur- 
dered and tortured. The three hundred were nearly all 
killed in the battle or when flying. The few survivors 
entrenched themselves in Forty Fort, but finally surren- 
dered. Every house and barn in the valley was burned, 
and every person not escaping to the woods was brutally 
killed. The squaws were especially active with firebrand 
and tomahawk. The army of allies then marched north- 
ward, leaving only desolation, and the Wyoming massacre 
was accomplished. It was a fearful error as well as a crime 
for the British. It nerved the hearts of patriots everywhere. 
Told in Europe, and growing in horror as it travelled, it 
created sympathy for the Americans and detestation for 
the British, and Chatham thundered against the policy of 
'' bringing the horrors of barbarous war upon our brethren." 

It was concluded to stop forever the possibilities of such 
ravages. The next summer, 1779, General Sullivan, with 
three thousand men, marched into the Indian country in 
western New York, where they, in a semi-civilized manner, 
cultivated the ground. With a cruelty almost equal to 
that of the Indians, he killed all he could find, destroj^ed 
the crops in the ground, and burned forty Indian villages. 
The Six Nations as a i^ower were annihilated, and the scat- 
tered remains had to be fed by the British through the rest 
of the war. 

Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, in 1781, practically 
ended the war, though peace was not declared till 1783. 




ROBERT MORRIS. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 223 

With great bonfires and a general illumination, Philadelphia 
celebrated the victory, and set herself to clear up the debris 
of the war. A better spirit began to prevail. John Dick- 
inson, who had been almost exiled, was elected to the 
council from the County of Philadelphia, and by a vote of 
forty-one to thirty-one of council and assembly was made 
president, practically the governor of the State. The Anti- 
Constitutionalists were again in power. Provost Smith also 
felt the smiles of fortune, and though some years elapsed 
before he again received the charter of his college, it was 
withheld by technical opposition against the wish of the 
assembly. Eobert Morris, who had never lost the confidence 
of Washington, was put in charge of the finances of the 
confederation in 1781, and wrought a wonderful transforma- 
tion. Troops were fed, clothed, and paid, and order came 
out of chaos. 

To aid in the work, he established in the same year the 
Bank of North America, which received a charter both from 
his State and the Confederation. The first was annulled 
by the jealousy of the Constitutionalists, but he managed 
to secure other charters, and the bank maintains its exist- 
ence to the present day. He resigned his place as superin- 
tendent of finance in 1784. 

At the close of the war, Pennsylvania contained nearly 
three hundred and fifty thousand people. Its wealth may 
be adjudged by its position in the list, when the Continental 
Congress called for the quotas of the State. Thus in 1783 
Massachusetts was placed first, with a quota of three hun- 
dred and twenty thousand dollars ; Pennsylvania second, 
with three hundred thousand dollars ; and Virginia third, 
with two hundred and ninety thousand dollars. In Phila- 
delphia there were about six thousand houses and forty 
thousand people. The old Tory aristocracy was almost 
destroyed, but there were other people who had become 
rich by the war, and gaiety and high living prevailed. 
It was, moreover, the capital city, and this brought many 
people and some business. 

The interest of the Penns had been bouorht out bv the 



224 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

assembly in 1779 for one hundred and tliirty thousand 
pounds, not. an illiberal sum when it is remembered that 
they were royalists, and that the purchase did not include 
their private estates and their manors, some of which are 
in possession of the family to this day. 

Another event of these years shows the growth of humane 
sentiment, even in the midst of war. The Friends had been 
working with their members and others to set all their 
own slaves free, and had finally accomplished the result 
during the war. In 1778, George Bryan, then vice-president 
of the council and acting president, urged the assembly to 
pass a bill freeing all slaves born after date. Eeed, the next 
president, renewed the recommendation. Bryan was then 
a member of the assembly. He vigorously urged the move- 
ment, and on March 1, 1780, it was carried by a vote of 
thirty-four to twenty-one. Pennsylvania led the way, and 
Massachusetts was only a few months behind. ^' Our bill," 
Bryan wrote to Samuel Adams, ''astonishes and pleases 
the Quakers. They looked for no such benevolent issue 
of our new government, exercised by Presbyterians." The 
Friends were certainly pleased, and began again to take an 
interest in politics. By the bill all children of negroes born 
after its passage, became free at twenty-one years of age. 

In June, 1783, three hundred old Continental soldiers 
marched in from Lancaster, demanding a settlement of their 
accounts. It was a mutiny, but the poor fellows had en- 
dured the sufferings of the war, and, now that i^eace was 
declared, asked their arrears of pay. They called on the 
council and issued a peremptory demand for an answer 
within twenty minutes, which was unanimously rejected. 
They paraded around the State house where Congress sat, 
and that body considered that they were '' grossly insulted," 
and adjourned to meet in Princeton, advising the council to 
call out the militia. But the temper of the militia could 
not be relied on unless the mutineers should attempt some 
disorder, and, except to talk and bluster, they did not seem 
likely to do anything serious. The matter ended with some 
sensible advice from John Dickinson to the soldiers, the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 225 

intervention of General St. Clair with them, and their return 
to Lancaster. The event probably hastened the settlement 
of revolutionary claims. Congress was invited to return, 
but sat in New York and elsewhere till 1790. 

The test of allegiance required by the law of 1777 was 
probably unconstitutionalj but it had served its purpose to 
give to the revolutionary party the complete control of the 
State government. About one-half of the voters of the State, 
otherwise qualified, were deprived of the right of suffrage, 
and now that the war was over, as many of them were 
the most conscientious citizens, it was thought it might be 
safe to repeal the act. The attempt was made in 1784, and 
strongly urged by General Wayne, though not accomplished 
till five years later. 

Dickinson was re-elected president of the State in 1783, 
and again in 1784. In 1783 the Presbyterians, not satisfied 
with the condition of things in the Philadelphia colleges, 
asked and received a charter for a new institution in their 
centre of population in the Cumberland Valley. Dr. Ben- 
jamin Eush was most active in forwarding the cause, and 
the president of the State made a personal donation, and 
encouraged it in every way possible. Though of Friendly 
connection he was a great lover of education, and in his 
honor it was named Dickinson College. Like Princeton of 
New Jersey, and Hampden and Sydney of Virginia, and 
later, Washington and Jefferson of Pennsylvania, its friends 
like to trace its impulse back to the ^'Log College" of 
Tennent. In 1833 it was transferred to the Methodists. 

In 1785 Franklin returned from France, full of years and 
honors. His suavity and diplomatic skill, combined with 
the hard sense of John Adams and John Jay, had concluded 
the treaty with England, which secured independence and 
retained the friendship of France. He was made president 
of the council immediately on his return, and re-elected in 
1786 and 1787, an honor only, in his case, for he allowed 
much of the work to be done by the vice-president. He 
was Pennsylvania's great man, and spent his old age, 
disturbed by disease it is true, the recipient of honorable 

15 



226 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

attention by all. Mifflin succeeded him as president in 1788, 
and continued in the place till a new constitution in 1790 
abolished the i^ost. 

Philadelphia was the meeting-place of the convention 
which framed the Constitution of the United States in 1787. 
The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1776, in the 
hurry of the early days of the war, but never fully ratified 
till its close, had performed the useful task of a temporary 
government. But it was evident they would not last much 
longer. In several respects they were hopelessly faulty. It 
required nine of the States to perform any act of legislation. 
The majority of the members of five of the smallest States 
could block any and all actions, no matter how important. 
Again, there was no way of enforcing obedience. There was 
practically no executive or judiciary. If they wanted troops 
or if they wanted money they could only appeal to the 
States, which did as they chose. It was impossible to 
collect funds pledged for the payment of the soldiers, for 
the principal of the debt when due, for the ordinary ex- 
penses of government. Thus the estimated expenses of 
1782 were nine million dollars. It was proposed to borrow 
four million dollars of this, and raise the balance by taxa- 
tion. But only about four hundred thousand dollars were 
given by the States, and there was no means of inducing them 
to forward the rest. The paper money was almost worth- 
less. Thus the country, while growing rapidly in wealth 
and population, was losing its credit and drifting into 
anarchy. These were the considerations which prompted 
the convention of 1787. 

The convention met in the State house in May. Wash- 
ington was President, no other name was mentioned. 
Pennsylvania sent Franklin, James Wilson, Eobert Morris, 
Gouverneur Morris, George Clymer, with others of less note. 
John Dickinson came from Delaware, for prior to 1790 the 
public men of the two States were largely interchangeable, 
and defended with great ability the rights of the small 
States. With him came his friend George Eead, and three 
others. Alexander Hamilton, of 'New York, and James 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 227 

Madison, of Virginia, were tlie strongest men of the con- 
vention. The doors were locked, and when they were 
opened in September the Constitution of the United States 
had been constructed. Till after the death of James Madi- 
son, the last survivor of the noted company, no one knew 
the proceedings. But the publication of his journal re- 
vealed the discussions fruitful for the future, by which the 
immortal work was produced. 

The day after the convention adjourned, Franklin, as 
president of the executive council, full of hope for the 
country, presented the Constitution to the Assembly of 
Pennsylvania, and the struggle for ratification began. 
Strangely enough, the members, with some noted excep- 
tions, divided on the old lines of Constitutionalists and Anti- 
Constitutionalists. The latter now became Federalists, 
adopting a national title, and the former Anti-Federalists. 
The two- bodied legislature provided for the nation was felt 
to be a rebuke to the Pennsylvania constitution, and the 
stronger central government was especially opposed by the 
ardent Scotch-Irish of the western part of the State. 

Philadelphia and the southeastern counties were tired 
of mob law and anarchy, and were determined to force 
through the measure. Their methods cannot be altogether 
commended. It was nearly time for the legislature to end, 
and a new one to be elected. It was sux)posed the election 
would turn on this question, and the Anti- Federalists were 
promising themselves a rousing campaign. But George 
Clymer, in one of the last days of the assembly, offered 
resolutions to hold a convention in ^N^ovember. The first of 
these was approved by a vote of forty-three to nineteen, and 
it was evident the others would follow at the next session. 
The nineteen resolved to absent themselves and break a 
quorum, and all that the majority could do was to bring 
their party up to within two of the number required to 
make a valid vote. But the party resources were not ex- 
hausted. When the assembly met the next morning, a 
crowd of men attended, forcing before them two of the 
nineteen whom they found in their rooms, and keeping them 



228 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

there struggling and protesting till the quorum was made 
and the convention voted. 

Then followed the campaign for delegates. A fierce 
pamphlet war followed. What do we know, said the oppo- 
nents, of this Constitution, hatched in secret, and sprung 
upon us? Washington is a good soldier, but knows nothing 
of government ; Franklin is in his dotage ; Hamilton and 
Madison but boys ; Dickinson and Eobert Morris for a long 
time oi)i)Osed the Declaration, and the Scotchman, James 
Wilson, who bore the brunt of the defence, is a dangerous 
man, friendly to monarchy. It has all the appearance of a 
British plot to destroy our liberties. So said the Anti- 
Federalists, but the eastern counties would not listen. 
Philadelphia elected Wilson and his associates by a vote of 
nearly ten to one over Eittenhouse and his friends. Frank- 
lin himself, who, perhaps for the sake of old comradeship, 
Avas a candidate on the opposition ticket, receiving only 
two hundred and thirty-five against five times as many for 
the unquestioned friends of the Constitution. 

The State convention met on November 21. The eastern 
counties voted solidly in the affirmative. The western 
almost as solidly in the negative. On December 12, the 
Constitution was adopted, forty-six to twenty-three. Dela- 
ware, under Dickinson's influence, had voted unanimously 
the same way five days earlier, being the first to adopt the 
Constitution, and Pennsylvania was second. The example 
of Pennsylvania decided the question. 

By July 4, 1788, ten States had ratified, and the greatest 
procession ever seen in Philadelphia marched through the 
streets, and listened to an oration by James Wilson. 

The making of constitutions became contagious. The 
Federalists, flushed with victory, determined to have a new 
one for Pennsylvania. A convention was called and sat in 
Philadelphia in November, 1789. After framing the con- 
stitution, it adjourned to permit discussion, and nearly a 
year later, without submitting it to a vote of the people, it 
was declared adopted. 

The important changes were borrowed from the Federal 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 229 

Constitution. There was to be but one executive officer, the 
governor, and two houses of legislature. The Council of 
Censors was abolished. The governor appointed judges and 
county officers, and became, in contrast with the president 
of the supreme executive council of the constitution of 1776, 
a most potential official. 

A new charter was given to Philadelphia, and Samuel 
Powel, the last mayor under the Penn charter, in 1775-76, 
was elected as the first under the new charter in 1789. 

In 1790, Franklin died in his eighty-fifth year. He was 
buried in Christ Church yard at Fifth and Arch Streets, 
by the side of his wife, where a simple stone marks the 
graves. 

Through these troubled times there came forward a leader 
of the Scotch-Irish of the western part of the State, William 
Findley, of Westmoreland County. He was a bitter oppo- 
nent of the Federal Constitution, and refused to sign the 
ratification. Afterwards, however, as a strong Eepublican, 
he was elected to Congress and served for twenty-four years, 
becoming the' 'Father of the House." He was a shrewd 
politician, and no man had a stronger hold than he on his 
constituents. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

1790-1799. 

Philadelphia the Capital City — President Washington and National 
Politics — Hamilton and the United States Bank — State Constitution 
of 1790 — Governor Mifflin — Revival of Industry — Colleges — Yellow 
Fever — Whiskey Rebellion — Albert Gallatin — Robert Morris — Fries 
Rebellion — Dr. George Logan — Removal of Government to Wash- 
ington and Lancaster. 

In December, 1790, Philadelphia became the seat of the 
government of the United States, and continued to be so till 
the summer of 1800, when Washington was ready for occu- 
pancy. The President occupied Eobert Morris's house on 
Market Street below Sixth. This had been successively the 
home of Eichard Penn, of Sir William Howe, of General 
Arnold, and of the great financier, who insisted that Presi- 
dent Washington should take it with some of the furniture. 
Congress sat in the building at the corner of Chestnut and 
Sixth Streets, which was given up by the Philadelphia 
courts for its use. The Senate of twenty-six members was 
in the second story, under the iDresidency of John Adams, 
the Vice-President, and the House of Eepresentatives below 
them, with Frederick A. Muhlenberg, of Pennsylvania, the 
son of the great Lutheran leader, Henry M. Muhlenberg, as 
Speaker. At Chestnut and Fifth Streets, after 1791, sat the 
Supreme Court of the United States, the fii^st chief justice 
being John Jay, of :N'ew York. James Wilson, of Pennsyl- 
vania, was an associate. 

Those were difficult days for the new republic. The 
duties and prerogatives of the different branches of the 
government were not strictly defined. There were jealousies 
and disputings. The Federalists feared mob-law, were dis- 
trustful of the people, and were continually mindful to 
strengthen the central government. The opposing party, 
230 




FREDERICK A. MUHLENBERG. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 281 

which could not afford to call itself any longer Anti-Fed- 
eralists, for the Constitution was becoming immensely popu- 
lar, was known as the Democratic-Eepublican, or by either 
name separately. They were fearful of an autocrat, who 
would be ultimately a king, in the presidential chair. They 
looked with dislike upon any titles of honor, or even asser- 
tions of dignity in the person of Washington or of John 
Adams. They were zealous defenders of popular and State 
rights, and looked with suspicion upon the brilliant finan- 
ciering of Alexander Hamilton, which was creating order 
in the treasury and prosperity in the country, but which 
was undoubtedly buttressing the national government with 
the support of moneyed men and interests. 

Moreover, foreign affairs were dividing the people. 
Hatred of England and love and gratitude to France for 
their parts in the war were still strong, and when in 1792-93 
the French people drove out the king and established a 
republic, the enthusiasm of America knew no bounds. 
Another war with the enemies of France would have been, 
for a little time, a very popular thing. Shall we desert the 
cause which supported us in our hour of trial? said the 
people, and it required all the influence and wisdom of 
Washington and Hamilton to keep the country steady. 

Washington was besieged in his house in Philadelphia by 
a mob, demanding war with England, and the Pennsylvania 
Democratic leaders, like Mifflin and McKean, strongly urged 
it. Nowhere did the sentiment seem so strong as in this 
State, which was probably due to the direct influence of 
the French minister in Philadelphia, Genet, who fanned the 
excitement, threatened to appeal from the government to 
the people, sent out privateers, and attacked the President 
in insulting publications. ^' If ever a nation was debauched 
by a man, the American nation has been debauched by 
Washington,'' said a writer in a Philadelphia gazette ; and 
it was but a type of the assaults made upon him. But 
Washington's quiet firmness carried the day. Genet was 
recalled, the excesses into which the French Eevolution was 
plunged alienated its American friends. John Jay's treaty 



232 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

with England removed some causes of opposition, and the 
revolution was complete when an American deputation to 
Paris was insulted by Napoleon, and came home without 
being permitted to accomplish its errand. Now the nation 
was hot for a war with France, and almost had it. 

The two parties were represented in Washington's cabinet, 
the Federalists by Hamilton, the Eepublicans by Jefferson. 
The one was Secretary of the Treasury, the other of State. 
Washington tried to keep the peace, but his sympathies 
were with his Federalist secretary, his aide-de-camp through 
the Ee volution, the ablest of the defenders of the new Con- 
stitution, the head of the most important department, the 
representative of law and a strong government. 

That gentleman found that a national bank was necessary 
to his operations, and a bill was introduced into Congress to 
establish one in Philadelphia. The oldest and strongest 
bank in the United States was already in this city, which 
was now the financial centre of the country. This new bank 
was to have a capital of ten million dollars, one-fifth of 
which should be subscribed by the government, and as soon 
as the public had a chance the remainder was over-sub- 
scribed the first day. Boston and New York sharply com- 
plained they had no opportunity to acquire the stock, which 
the Philadelphians appropriated to themselves. 

The opposition was bitter. Bank bills were never seen 
in many sections. Paper money was discredited by the 
previous State issues. In the frontier sections, live stock, 
land, and whiskey constituted the money, and every man 
of wealth everywhere had his strong box in which he kept 
his excess of coin. The bank, it was said, would be an 
aristocratic institution, of use only to the cities and to the 
wealthy in them, fostering monopolies, and giving fictitious 
credits to speculators. But Hamilton prevailed by Northern 
votes against Southern, and the bank received its charter, 
which would last till 1811. 

Another scheme of Hamilton's was the assumption of the 
State debts. There was something to be said against this. 
The impecunious States which had unwisely managed their 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 233 

finances would have themselves relieved, and the burden 
would be distributed over their wiser or more fortunate 
neighbors. On the other hand, it was argued that these 
debts had mostly been incurred in the common cause during 
the war, and the credit of the country demanded that they 
should be promptly and systematically paid. Here again 
the Xorth sui)ported and the South opposed. By a jiolitical 
trade the measure was passed with a tacit understanding that 
the i)ermanent seat of government should be south of Mason 
and Dixon's line, and largely on this account Washington, 
rather than Philadelphia, became the capital. Pennsyl- 
vania had received better financial management than some 
States, and her debt was only two million dollars. 

In Philadelphia Washington was inaugurated for his 
second term, in 1793, having received the unanimous elec- 
toral vote. Here four years later he issued his profoundly 
influential farewell address, and here John Adams took up 
the duties of the office as his successor. The little buildings 
on Chestnut Street were the scene of many an interesting 
occasion, full of import for the future of the republic, in 
that last decade of the eighteenth century, but the main 
significance of these events is rather for the nation than the 
State. 

Pennsylvania in national affairs at first went with the 
Federalists. She cast all her votes for Washington, and 
eight out of ten for Adams in the first election, and in the 
second all for Washington, and fourteen out of fifteen for 
Adams. Philadelphia, like the other Northern cities, was 
strongly Federal, so were the adjacent counties except when 
the fear of war threw part of the Quaker vote to the other 
side. The western part was in sympathy with the party 
of Jefferson. 

The constitution which the State adopted in 1790 was 
fundamentally in ideas and words a copy of the federal 
articles just ratified. The governor, elected for three years, 
could serve only nine years out of twelve. The lower house, 
elected annually, could not have more than one hundred or 
less than sixty members, and the senators, with a term of four 



234 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

years, were in number between one- fourth and one- third the 
lower house, and it was so arranged that the terms of one- 
fourth of them would expire each year. The judges and 
county officers being appointed by the governor, he thus 
became the r expository of great power. 

The canvas for governorship began immediately. Two 
revolutionary generals were placed in the field. In a paper 
signed by Eobert Morris, Frederick A. Muhlenberg, James 
Wilson, Dr. Benjamin Eush, and other great names, Arthur 
St. Clair was commended to the people as the candidate of 
the Federalists. He had an honorable record through the 
war, and was one of Washington's trusted generals. He 
was a man of character and probity, and, though for a time 
President of the Continental Congress, was but little known 
in the State. From this date his career was unfortunate. 
In an expedition which he led in 1793 against the Ohio 
Indians, he was utterly routed. This ended his public life, 
but living to a great age in extreme poverty, in a hut in 
the Alleghanies, he entertained foot travellers to procure a 
meagre sustenance. In a time of extremity he had advanced 
eighteen hundred dollars to pay a revolutionary bill. In 
1818 the Federal government recognized the justice of his 
claim, and paid him two thousand dollars, and sixty dollars 
per month. Pennsylvania also granted him a pension, so 
that his last days were comfortable. 

A popular meeting of Republicans in Philadelphia nomi- 
nated Thomas Mifflin, and he was elected by about twenty- 
eight thousand votes to three thousand. Parties were 
changing, and Mifflin came in as a Democrat. He was re- 
elected in 1793 and again in 179G by large majorities over 
F. A. Muhlenberg, thus serving his full constitutional term. 
Mifflin was a fine speaker and an attractive man. He had 
made an illustrious record since he left his Quaker home for 
the army in 1775. He was a man whom people delighted to 
honor, and was greatly popular. From 1788 to 1799 he was 
the chief executive of Pennsylvania, and while he never 
rose to be a statesman of the highest rank he was an influ- 
ential man. His later years were clouded by ill health and 




THOMAS MIFFLIN. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 235 

debt, and he died soon after the expiration of his term as 
governor. 

In the distressed days of the Confederation, business was 
dull, the good money went abroad, and financial disaster did 
not seem far from any one. AVith the adoption of the con- 
stitution came immediate prosperity. Thus the exports of 
flour from Philadelphia were, in 1786, one hundred and fifty 
thousand barrels j in 1787, two hundred and two thousand 
barrels ; in 1788, two hundred and twenty thousand barrels, 
and in 1789, three hundred and sixty-nine thousand barrels. 
As usual, agricultural prosperity stimulated all others, and 
manufactories and money- making schemes of all kinds, 
many of them speculative, grew in number and consequence. 
Lotteries flourished apace. There was one to improve the 
City Hall of Philadelphia, another to aid Dickinson College, 
another, of large proportions, to develop the city of Wash- 
ington. The idea extended to private affairs. To make the 
most out of a decedent's efi*ects, people would be asked to put 
in small equal sums, and the tickets thus purchased would 
draw articles of more or less value. 

In 1791 the country was full of prosperity. The State 
debts were cleared away, and, to a certain extent. State taxa- 
tion. Hamilton's measures were showing that the national 
debt was manageable. The old revolutionary promises were 
being paid off, and many people who had considered them 
as valueless found themselves in possession of ready money, 
or interest- bearing notes, and this money largely went into 
lotteries for all manner of improvements in State, church, 
and school. Some wise men pointed to the inevitably dis- 
appointed hopes, the withdrawal of people from useful in- 
dustries, and that the burdens would fall on the poor. In 
time they were heard, and the States began to circumscribe 
the trafiic, but now it bloomed in every hamlet. 

There were also legitimate enterprises. One of these was 
the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike. A number of 
gentlemen organized the company, and in 1792 the books 
were opened to the public. As over two thousand subscribers 
appeared, where only six hundred were permitted, the sue- 



236 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

cessful ones were chosen by lot. The land was condemned, 
and the road-bed prepared, but the Americans did not know 
how to make stone roads. They hauled in great rocks and 
undertook to fill the interstices. But this settled unevenly, 
and the road became almost impassable. An Englishman, 
who had known of Macadam's road, advised the general 
breaking of the rocks, and the Lancaster Pike became under 
his management the finest road in America, and the pride 
of the State. 

Taverns lined it a few miles apart. Soon the great, white, 
covered Conestoga wagons began to travel to and fro, bring- 
ing in the farm produce of the west, and returning, though 
largely empty, with supplies for the farmers. It was a busy 
highway in the days before the railway. 

The Schuylkill Canal also dates back to this plethoric 
epoch. It was over- subscribed six times when the books 
were opened. Other canals were projected in every direc- 
tion. 

These were the days also of the early serious attempts to 
apply steam to boats. John Fitch, a precursor of Fulton, a 
native of Connecticut, w^ho had made Pennsylvania his home, 
began experimenting with the problem, and in 17S6 he ex- 
hibited on the Delaware the first boat ever propelled by 
steam. He went on improving his machinery, and the as- 
sembly granted him exclusive rights to navigate the waters 
of the State. In 1790 the boat ran from Philadelphia to 
Burlington against the wind in three and one-fourth hours, 
and made regular trips through the summer, making some- 
times seven miles an hour, but discouraged by a variety of 
failures, he sealed up his papers and gave them to the 
Philadelphia Library, with instructions not to open them 
for thirty years, went to Kentucky, and killed himself. His 
boat went to wreck on Petty' s Island, and rotted away. 

To the same date belongs the first attempt to mine anthra- 
cite coal. It is said that a hunter falling down a steep bank, 
above what is nowMauch Chunk, found a great black stone^ 
which was sent to Philadelphia, and pronounced excellent 
coal. A company was formed, which bought up Summit 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 237 

Hill and its neighborhood, and went to work. It was not 
at first successful, for other fuel was plentiful. 

Nor was all the energy directed into these material chan- 
nels. Periodicals started into existence in numbers hitherto 
unknown. Daily, weekly, and monthly papers and maga- 
zines, mostly short-lived, were used for political and other 
purposes, and sprung up in every town of consequence. In 
1790 the Methodists and Universalists originated Sunday- 
school organizations in Pennsylvania, and a year later Dr. 
Benjamin Eush formed a society in which ten dollars gave 
life membership to develop a system of non-sectarian Sun- 
day-schools, in which hundreds of children were taught to 
read and write. The association still exists under the title 
of the First Day or Sunday-school Association. An attempt 
was also made at this time to establish week-day schools 
throughout the State supported by taxes, but it was prema- 
ture. The old College of Philadelphia and the new univer- 
sity were joined in 1791, and became the University of Penn- 
sylvania. Franklin College in Lancaster, chartered in 1787, 
was beginning to be used by the Germans, as Dickinson was 
by the Presbyterians. The academies which grew into Wash- 
ington and Jefferson Colleges, in the southwestern part of 
the State, date to the same period. Academies endowed 
with State grants were started at Philadelphia, German town, 
Pittsburg, Eeading, and elsewhere. A little later the Friends 
established their boarding-school at Westtown, in Chester 
County. 

Population was increasing, families were large, and the 
migratory habits of the people were developing. The ele- 
ments of the population were mixing. Quakers settled 
among the Presbyterians of the west, and the German dis- 
tricts became penetrable by others. Thus the State was 
growing in homogeneity and friendly feelings. In 1790 the 
census of Pennsylvania showed four hundred and thirty- 
four thousand three hundred and seventy-three people j in 
1800, six hundred and two thousand three hundred and 
sixty- five, second only to Virginia. 

But in Philadelphia a dark event was to cloud this pros- 



238 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

perity. In 1793 a number of refugees from Hayti, driven 
out by the massacres there, sought food and shelter in the 
citj'. This was just at the height of the French sentiment, 
and they had appealed to a philanthropic city. When it 
was known they were on ships in the Delaware in a destitute 
condition, thousands of dollars were immediately raised. 
Some of the sufferers were sent to France, and some found 
homes and farms in the State. 

Whether the germs of the yellow fever came on these 
ships will never be known. But about the middle of sum- 
mer there broke out along the wharves what was called the 
putrid fever. It rapidly spread, and the whole city was soon 
in its grasp, though the severity of its attack was greatest in 
the dirtiest localities. It would begin with a fever. Then 
would follow a black vomit and bleeding from the nose. The 
skin and the whites of the eyes would change to a dark 
yellow, and about the eighth day, unless a favorable turn 
occurred, the sufferer would die. The streets were full of 
funerals. Men were afraid to greet their best friends, and 
the dead would often go for some time without burial, so 
excessive was the demand for the carts. 

The city authorities went vigorously to work cleaning the 
streets, and in so doing made no mistake. But the practice 
of the doctors was contradictory, and in many cases ridicu- 
lous. Dr. Eush urged bleeding and purging, and, with 
sublime indifference to personal danger, visited his patients 
by the hundreds. Others made light of this treatment, and 
fed the sick on Peruvian bark. So bitter did some become 
that Dr. Rush recovered five thousand dollars damages at 
law from one unusually violent critic. Whether the good 
doctor killed or cured more may be doubtful, though 
his constant advice to avoid intoxicating drinks and his 
cheery disposition doubtless helped many a poor sufferer, 
and kept some well people from taking the disease. 

Finally, a special hospital was improvised, and Stephen 
Girard and Peter Helm volunteered as nurses, taking their 
lives in their hands. Fifty per cent, of their patients died. 
The disease increased in intensity till cold weather stopped 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 239 

it. It is said that five thousand people died, and that seven- 
teen thousand left the city. The national government re- 
moved its offices ; papers stopped publication ; business, 
except dealing in drugs, almost ceased to exist. 

Among the curious remedies which the people eagerly 
caught at, and which we may see in the advertisements of 
the papers before suspension, was the ^^ vinegar of the four 
thieves." It was reported that at Marseilles, during the 
prevalence of the fever there, four men had found a drug 
which made them immune, and they plundered the sick as 
they pleased. The recipe was said to have been sent to 
Philadelphia, and every druggist had his own idea about it. 

The doctors suggested the burning of gunpowder, and a 
regular fusillade was kept up for some days, when quiet was 
advised. I'Tothing proved effectual but cleanliness and frost. 

Doctors, nurses, and ministers who heroically discharged 
their duties died at their posts. Governor Mifflin and 
Alexander Hamilton took the disease, but recovered. 

The city was visited by the plague again in 1797 and the 
following two years, introduced in each case, it was believed, 
by ships from the West Indies. Every one who could pos- 
sibly remove did so, except the brave men and women who 
stayed to minister to the sick. 

One of the results of these visitations was the creation of 
a better sanitary system, efficient hospitals, and quarantine, 
and these, with the growth of medical skill, soon destroyed 
the fever. It was a dearly-bought lesson, but the State and 
city were wise enough to learn it. 

Notwithstanding this scourge the city and suburbs grew 
from forty-five thousand in 1790 to seventy thousand ten 
years later. 

While Philadelphia was suffering from the plague the 
other end of the State was disturbed by difficulties of another 
sort. The farmers west of the Alleghanies made almost 
all their corn and rye into whiskey. With the meagre fa- 
cilities for transportation they could not compete with their 
eastern rivals, who were getting rich from the demand for 
grain, occasioned by European troubles. But distilled into 



240 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

whiskey, the question of transport was largely reduced, and 
the grain became marketable. Thus whiskey became the 
staple, and the circulating medium of this western country. 
When Congress, in 1791, put a tax on their great product, 
to supplement the revenue derived from imports, in order 
to pay the interest on the national debt, it struck a blow 
which was felt more severely by them than by others else- 
where. These poor men were not of the sort to acquiesce 
quietly. Their Scotch- Irish blood was aroused. Ee volu- 
tion was not a sin in their eyes, and they determined not 
to pay the tax. This resolution was strengthened by acts i 
of the Pennsylvania Legislature declaring the excise op- | 
pressive. 

Political causes also intervened. They were Democrats, 
and the east was Federalist. They were heated over the 
French Eevolution, while the east, conservative and opposed 
to disturbances of all sorts, was fearful of a return of an- 
archy. Again, General St. Clair had just suffered an igno- 
minious defeat by the Indians of Ohio under Joseph Brant, 
the same chief who had commanded at the Wyoming mas- 
sacre, and the Pennsylvanians were fearful of renewed Indian 
attacks. All of these things kept up the excitement and 
tended to the organization and alertness of the farmers and 
distillers. 

The disturbance began almost immediately after the na- 
tional excise law was passed. It was difficult to find any 
one willing to execute it in the whiskey region. When a 
collector was finally ap>pointed, he was stripped, tarred and 
feathered, and otherwise maltreated. Warrants were sworn 
out against the offenders, but the marshal of the district 
was afraid to serve them. A man of disordered mind, who 
announced himself a collector, was blindfolded, tarred and 
feathered, and tied to a tree in the woods. After these out- 
rages, matters seemed to rest in abeyance till 1794, when 
Congress set itself seriously to work to collect the tax. 

One of the causes of complaint of the whiskey men was 
that the State courts had no jurisdiction, but that they were 
required to answer to the Federal court at Philadelphia. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 241 

Congress took some measures to remedy this difficulty, but 
when in July a number of distillers were served with writs 
for disobedience to the law, instantly the alarm went abroad 
that the men were being carried off to Philadelphia. An 
attack was made on the house of the revenue inspector, and 
the mob was driven away, one man having been killed and 
six wounded. 

Their leaders shrewdly advised that the only safety now 
was to implicate so many that it would be impossible to pun- 
ish all. So they robbed the United States mails, and called 
out the militia. The men obeyed without questioning the 
authority for the call, and met on Braddock's Field on the 
1st of August, by the thousands, ready for any violent act. 

Meantime all was alarm in Pittsburg. The rioters threat- 
ened to march in and act as divine agents in , destroying 
Sodom, as they graciously called the little town of twelve 
hundred people. The town people held a meeting, and 
agents of the two parties came together to find what was to 
be done. Four objectionable men must be driven out of 
town, and the rest of the people must march out to Brad- 
dock's Field, were the inexorable terms of the ^^ Whiskey 
Boys." The four went, and the people marched out in 
apparent despair. The next day the insurgents concluded 
to go to Pittsburg. They were carefully conducted in so as 
to avoid the garrison, and encamped on the edge. Every 
householder carried them provisions and whiskey, and by 
this unwilling hospitality the invaders were propitiated, 
and Pittsburg was saved. 

Not so, however, the government. There was an open 
insurrection. Governor Mifflin was either weak or a dema- 
gogue. He hesitated, till President Washington declared 
that if the State would not quell it the Federal government 
would. Troops from Virginia, from Maryland, from New 
Jersey, and from Pennsylvania, fifteen thousand strong, 
marched to the west. The fears that the Democrats would 
sympathize with the insurgents soon disappeared in the face 
of open rebellion, and Mifflin himself led the Pennsylva- 
nians. 

16 



242 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Commissioners had preceded the army, and there was not 
much trouble in securing from the leaders all that the gov- 
ernment wanted. By the time the troops reached the west- 
ern counties the insurrection had disappeared. There was 
nothing to fight. A show of force, however, was useful to 
convince the people that there was no sympathy for them, 
and that they must obey the laws. The whiskey rebellion 
was at an end. 

Albert Gallatin was brought into prominence by these 
disturbances. He was born in Geneva, in 1761, and came 
to Boston in 1780, having received an excellent training in 
school and home. His mind was philosophic, and he was a 
Democrat of the most radical type. He never got over his 
French accent and foreign manners, and the Federal party, 
which he always opposed, held him up to the people as 
un-American and unsympathetic. He came, however, to 
America, as he says, ^' to drink in a love for independence 
in the freest country in the universe," and no one can point 
to his career as other than guided by patriotic impulses. In 
1782 he was appointed to teach French in Harvard College ; 
but the Puritan atmosphere of Boston was unpleasant, and 
a year later he came to Philadelphia. After some drifting, 
he bought, in 1786, a large tract of land in southwestern 
Pennsylvania, in Fayette County, and went there to reside. 
He symi)athized with the opposition to the ratification of 
the Federal Constitution, and his first public appearance was 
as member, from Fayette County, of a convention called to 
bring influence upon Congress to have it modified in the 
direction of greater protection to personal and State rights, 
as proposed by Massachusetts and Virginia. He was also a 
delegate to the convention which created the State constitu- 
tion of 1790, though he was opposed to the movement. He, 
however, entered heartily into the debates, and his great 
ability was amply demonstrated. He was a member of the 
first Legislature of the State, and himself says, ' ' I acquired 
an extraordinary influence, the more remarkable that I was 
in a party minority. I was indebted for it to my great in- 
dustry and to the facility with which I could understand and 




ALBERT GALLATIN 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 243 

carry on the current business." This explains his future 
success, \yherever he went he became greatly influential. 
He enjoyed Philadelphia society. ''An equal distribution 
of property has rendered every individual independent, and 
there is among us true and real equality.'^ 

Fayette was one of the counties most affected by the 
whiskey tax, and Gallatin was with his constituents. He was 
secretary of a meeting in Pittsburg, which resolved to have 
nothing to do with collectors, but to treat them with contempt, 
and withhold from them all the comforts of life. This was 
a dangerous and impolitic step for Gallatin, and drew upon 
him the indignation of Washington and Hamilton. 

However, such was his ]3opularity, that in 1793, at the 
age of thirty- two, though in a minority party of the Legis- 
lature, he was elected by a vote of forty-five to thirty-seven 
to the Senate of the United States, as the colleague of Eobert 
Morris. He was, however, excluded from that body by a 
party vote, on the ground that he had not been nine years a 
citizen of the United States. He had been in the country 
thirteen years, coming as a minor, but it had been only 
eight years since he took his oath of citizenship. The few 
months during which he occupied his seat greatly extended 
his reputation, and his friends at home looked upon him and 
themselves as martyrs to the cause of democracy. He went 
back to his farm in Fayette County. 

When the rebellion of 1794 broke out, Gallatin was absent 
from the proceedings at Braddock's Field. When the com- 
missioners came, Gallatin counselled submission, and it was 
by his eloquence and consummate adroitness that, in a 
public meeting to discuss measures of further resistance, 
they were induced to vote to accept the terms, and the 
western counties were saved from open rebellion. He atoned 
for his part in the Pittsburg resolutions, where, as he said, 
he had been guilty of " a political sin," by his courage and 
skill. Gallatin was elected to the United States House of 
Eepresentatives, which on a technicality excluded him, 
but he was triumphantly re-elected immediately after, 
serving from 1795 to 1801. He became Secretary of the 



244 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Treasury under Jefferson, and, except Hamilton, no abler 
man held the place. Almost all positions in the national 
government were afterwards offered him, the most of which 
he declined. 

Eobert Morris served one term as Senator from Penn- 
sylvania in the national house. When he retired in 1795 
he went into large land si^eculations, which, through the 
treachery of associates, ended disastrously. In 1798, this 
great financier, who had bolstered up the nation's credit, 
and had given without stint to the cause, who was the host 
and trusted adviser of Washington, and one of the wisest 
of statesmen, went into a debtor' s prison, where he remained 
three years and six months. A few years later he died. 
His useful life deserved a better ending. 

In the Presidential election of 1797 party lines were 
strongly drawn. John Adams was the recognized candidate 
of the Federalists, and Thomas Jefferson of the Republi- 
cans. Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, and Aaron 
Burr, of Xew York, were intended to be the vice-presidents 
of their respective parties. This was difficult to manage : 
under the Constitution, as it then was, the recipient of the 
highest number of votes became president, and of the sec- 
ond highest the vice-president. Adams had seventy-one 
votes, Jefferson sixty-eight, Pinckney fifty-nine, and Burr 
thirty, with forty-eight scattering. All States north of 
Pennsylvania voted for Adams, and all south, except Dela- 
ware, for Jefferson. Pennsylvania was now Anti- Federal, 
and cast one vote for Adams, fourteen for Jefferson, two 
for Pinckney, and thirteen for Burr. The Constitution was 
soon changed to i)revent a president and vice-president 
l)elonging to opposing parties. 

Another rebellion against taxes, this time among the Ger- 
mans of the eastern counties, made some excitement in 1799. 
A year before. Congress had decreed a direct tax on slaves, 
houses, and lands. The first article of property did not 
trouble the State, for there were now but seventeen hundred 
of them. The value of the houses was ascertained by the 
curious process of counting the number and measuring the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 245 

size of the windows. The cry was raised that the unpopular 
window tax was to be revived, and in the country around 
Bethlehem opposition was greatest. 

The resistants found a leader in an itinerant vendue auc- 
tioneer, John Fries. He knew and was known universally. 
Keen in repartee, fertile in explanations, he denounced 
the tax from tavern steps and vendue stands all over the 
country. A mob was organized, marched upon Bethlehem, 
and released the prisoners detained by the marshal for non- 
conformity to the law. The militia was called out, and the 
officers explained to the people the fairness and legality of 
the tax, and that resistance was rebellion. They melted 
away as promptly as the \Yhiskey Boys. Fries was arrested, 
but was pardoned by the President. 

An incident of the summer of 1798 brought a Pennsylva- 
nian into national prominence. The republics of America 
and France had changed from enthusiastic allies to such 
open enemies that war seemed probable. Washington was 
drawn from his retirement and made commander-in-chief 
of the army. It was a federal war, and, for the time being, 
was rather popular. The Eepublicans were opposers. A 
well-intentioned Quaker, Dr. George Logan, the grandson 
of William Penn's secretary, and Chief Justice of Penn- 
sylvania, James Logan, was distressed at the i^rospect of 
war, and undertook a voluntary mission to France to restore 
harmony. Without passport, without credentials, he was 
received and feted in Paris by Talleyrand. What he did 
is hardly known. Washington received him coldly on his 
return, and Congress afterwards enacted a law prohibiting 
such self-appointed embassies. He himself thought he 
averted a war, and in this position the Eepublicans sup- 
ported him. He was sent first to the Pennsylvania Assem- 
bly, and, beginning with 1801, represented the State one 
term in the United States Senate. 

Whatever Logan's services, the war excitement soon 
passed over, and Washington again retired to Mt .Vernon, 
this time to die. The inveterate habit of bleeding every 
sick man probably killed him. The voice of criticism, 



246 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

especially violent in Philadelphia, in such papers as The 
Aurora, was hushed, and most people could unite in honor- 
ing the man who was ^' first in war, first in peace, and first 
in the hearts of his countrymen." Despite his exterior 
coldness, Washington felt deeply the unjust and bitter at- 
tacks of his enemies, and the Morris mansion on Market 
Street was the scene of many an outbreak of indignation 
and temper. He had abundant reasons for advising in his 
Farewell Address to beware of the violence of party feeling. 

In 1800, according to previous arrangement, the Federal 
government removed its business southward to the new 
capital. In December, 1799, the State government also emi- 
grated. As early as 1787 the assembly had adopted a reso- 
lution that Philadelphia was ' ^ an unfortunate location' ' for 
the capital of Pennsylvania. In 1795 the House, by a vote 
of thirty-six to thirty-four, decided to go to Carlisle, but the 
Senate did not concur. Three years later the same voting 
was repeated, this time the place being Wrightstown, York 
County. In 1799 both houses concurred in a bill to go to 
Lancaster, and Governor Mifflin signed it. 

The reasons for this change were various. When travel 
was toilsome and expensive, there was an element of fairness 
in distributing it as evenly as possible. The plague had 
given abundant cause for suspicion as to the general health- 
fulness of Philadelphia. But perhaps, more than all, the 
old causes which divided the east from the west and centre 
of the State, growing out of racial and sectarian distinctions, 
the causes which divided the sections in revolutionary times, 
when the United States Constitution was to be ratified, and 
when national parties were formed, had the profoundest in- 
fluence. The counties, except those close to Philadelphia, 
voted unanimously for another capital. There was an 
evident distrust of the city and its influences, and in the 
final vote in the lower house, only twenty-four representa- 
tives stood up for the metropolis against forty-four for Lan- 
caster. 

The fear of the mob, as evidenced in the forcible means 
used to procure a quorum when the Federal Constitution 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 247 

came up for consideration in the Legislature, was often given 
as a reason why free speech could not be secured in the great 
city. In the opinion of a contemporary writer of credit, 
this was the chief motive for the change. 

This double departure of government was a serious loss to 
Philadelphia. She had been the most important city of the 
States, the seat not only of government, but of the best in- 
tellectual life, and the best financial and benevolent insti- 
tutions. Some of this she retained, and her growth in num- 
bers did not cease, but there was hereafter something missing 
from her life, which she possessed both under the Quaker 
domination of pre-revolutionary times and the political pre- 
eminence which, for a quarter of a century, followed 1775. 
While containing many excellent people, her corporate his- 
tory for a long time was comparatively commonplace. Her 
reputation for ''slowness" and conservatism now began to 
grow, and the country ceased to look to her for good gov- 
ernment, for intellectual leadership, or for commercial su- 
premacy. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

1799-1810. 

Governor McKean — Federal Mistakes — Duane — Election of 1800 — 
Demand for a Pure Democracy — Simon Snyder — State Politics — 
Gideon Olmstead's Claim — Internal Improvements — Steam Naviga- 
tion — Stephen Girard — Pittsburg — Effect of the Embargo — Liter- 
ary Standing of Philadelphia — General Crudeness. 

Thomas Mifflin was succeeded as Governor of Penn- 
sylvania by Thomas McKean, who also served three triennial 
terms. He was now sixty-five years old. He was born in 
Chester County, of humble parentage, and was educated 
at the New London Academy. He studied law, and at 
twenty-eight was elected to the Delaware Assembly, where 
he served eleven years. He was a member of the Conti- 
nental Congress from Delaware through most of its exist- 
ence, and was its president in 1781. He was a signer of 
the Declaration of Independence, and a colonel in the 
army. In 1777 he was made Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania, which position he retained till 
1799, holding it in addition to his other appointments from 
both Delaware and Pennsylvania. He was the author of 
the constitution of Delaware, and a member of the con- 
vention of 1790, which produced the constitution of Penn- 
sylvania. His versatile abilities and public usefulness may 
be judged by this long list of offices, and he was now to 
round out his public career by nine years in the governor's 
chair. He was a firm, inflexible, honest, plain-speaking, 
and at times violent man, and, though a strong Democrat, was 
far removed from a demagogue, not using doubtful arts to 
increase his popularity. Yet he had much popular strength, 
and his opponents recognized it. It is said that a German 
opposing a bill to legalize life insurance, said, ''If we pass 
this bill, old McKean will get his life insured, and so we shall 
248 




THOMAS McKEAN. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 249 

never get rid of him." The Federal party had still some 
vitality, polling thirty-two thousand votes for James Ross. 
But McKean, as the candidate of the Democrats, had six 
thousand majority. In 1802 he again defeated Ross, this 
time by thirty thousand majority, and three years later he 
ran as an Independent Democrat against the regular Demo- 
cratic candidate, Simon Snyder, winning by about five 
thousand votes. He died in 1817. 

The Federalists were swollen with their success, when in 
1797 the country swung around to their position of an- 
tagonism to France. They unwisely forced through two 
radical measures which were immensely unpopular. One, 
the alien law, gave the President the power to order out of 
the country and imprison any unnaturalized resident. The 
other, the sedition law, provided that any who should un- 
lawfully combine against the government, or say anything 
scandalous about it, might be imprisoned and fined. These 
great powers invested in a government were felt to be 
dangerous to civil rights and free si^eech. 

Kowhere was dissatisfaction more general or its expression 
fiercer than in Pennsylvania. Perhaps the enactments 
were due as much to the stream of exasperating abuse of 
the government which poured forth from The Aurora, a 
Philadelphia paper, than to any other cause. It was well 
known that the editor, William Duane, would suffer under 
the law if any opportunity offered, and he was narrowly 
watched. He had come to Philadelphia in 1795, and almost 
immediately exerted a large influence, which was not onlj^ 
local, but national. He was a Democratic partisan of the 
extremest type, and had a large share in the violent politics 
which characterized the first decade of the century. 

He had a large following from all ranks, which was now 
swollen hj numbers of Irishmen who had fled to this country 
after their unsuccessful rebellion of 1798. The alien and 
sedition laws were supposed to bear heavily on them, and 
as enemies of England they became greatly popular with the 
Democrats. The uniform association of Irish immigrants 
with this party dates from this time. Duane and the immi- 



250 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

grants, innocently perhaps, were the cause of a street riot 
on a Sunday, when a petition was being passed around for 
the repeal of the obnoxious laws. For this they were tried 
and acquitted. Trials seem to have been too common to 
notice. Duane says he had sixty libel cases on hand at one 
time, and they did not api)ear to mollify his statements. 

McKean's election in 1799, followed by Jefferson's to the 
presidency a year later, placed Pennsylvania, without dis- 
pute, in the ranks of the democracy. The State had not 
been divided into districts, and as the time approached, it 
became evident that if Pennsylvania should have any elec- 
toral vote, it must be cast by the Legislature. The house 
was Democratic and the senate Federal, and a compromise 
was effected by which each house was to select eight candi- 
dates, and from these a joint meeting should select fifteen 
electors. Thus it came to pass that eight votes were given 
to Jefferson and Burr and seven to Adams and Pinckney. 

!N'othing could exceed the excitement of this closely con- 
tested election, and if one despairs of his country on account 
of the dishonorable politics of the present day, it may re- 
assure him to read the accounts of the extravagant and inde- 
fensible means which were used, not only in Pennsylvania, 
but elsewhere, and to remember that the country survived. 

The election resulted in sixty- six votes for Jefferson and 
Burr, sixty-five for Adams, and sixty-four for Pinckney. 
By the awkward requirements of the Constitution, as it then 
was, the decision between Jefferson and Burr had to go to 
the House of Representatives, and here Pennsylvania cast 
her vote for Jefferson, who was elected, ^ow, said The 
Aurora^ the revolution of 1776 is complete. At any rate, 
federalism was practically dead in Pennsylvania. Amid 
great rejoicing and abundance of French cockades, and bitter 
taunts at the followers of Adams, Philadelphia celebrated 
the victory of democracy. The Quaker City, but ten years 
before the bulwark of order, now went wild in denouncing 
the aristocracy of the Federalists, and in celebrating the 
triumph of the populace. Grave men quietly shook their 
heads and prophesied a reign of terror. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 251 

The revolutionary sentiment once started was not easily 
curbed. A demand arose in Pennsylvania for a purer de- 
mocracy. Jefferson was too conservative, said tlie radicals. 
The constitutions of the United States and of Pennsylvania 
were made by aristocrats, lawyers, and men of learning and 
property. We have passed this stage, and now demand 
the supremacy of the common people. They should enter 
directly into every executive, legislative, and judicial act. 
Every law should be framed and executed by them. All 
men are equal, and one class is not better fitted for govern- 
ment than another. With this cry came another for econ- 
omy and low taxes. If in Pennsylvania workmen receive 
from six to ten dollars a month, why should officials have 
more *? Their only necessary qualifications are plain common 
sense and honesty. 

While Jefferson was the candidate of this class of people, 
he was too slow for them. The story of his hitching his 
own horse to the palings of the fence when he went to 
deliver his inaugural address is a fiction, but in many ways 
he encouraged the democratic spirit. The Federalists had 
been too exclusive, and, with the example of France before 
them, had mistrusted the people. They had endeavored to 
hedge themselves about with statutory provisions, and re- 
tain power in the hands of the '' well born,'' as John Adams 
expressed it, and well educated, keeping the people at a 
distance. Jefferson changed this, unfortunately in part, by 
the removal of Federal office-holders, to make room for good 
Democrats, and in part by urging economy and simplicity in 
all public affairs. He did not, however, satisfy the ex- 
tremists, and these extremists were especially strong in 
Pennsylvania, where their boldness and numbers occasioned 
great concern to the sober people of the State. The moder- 
ate Democrats were almost ready to unite with the Federalists 
to save the commonwealth. 

Governor McKean, though an ardent follower of Jefferson, 
was a man very likely to suffer from this state of things. 
He did not hesitate to express his contempt for the kind of 
legislators sent up by some counties, whom he publicly 



252 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

called ^'clodhoppers." He was a man of ability and char- 
acter, and he refused to bow down to the new doctrine of 
equality. At his re-election in 1802, the movement was not 
fully developed, and he had no opponent except the candi- 
date of the Federalists, who only polled about one-fourth 
of the votes. Three years later his party set him aside, 
and nominated Simon Snyder, taking as their watchword a 
revision of the constitution of 1790, in the direction of 
democracy. 

Simon Snyder, who served nine years as Governor of 
Pennsylvania, and proved himself a safe and intelligent 
executive, commended himself by his history to the sup- 
port of the triumphant Democrats of 1805. He was born 
in Lancaster County, the son of a ^^ Palatine" emigrant 
of 1758, and had almost no opportunity for education. He 
moved to Northumberland, a small place, where he was 
store-keeper and farmer. He was sent to the house, and in 
time became speaker, and proved himself to be prompt, 
suave, and just. He became popular, and as he could talk 
both German and English was finally chosen by his fellow- 
legislators to represent the cause of Democratic revision of 
all the landmarks of the government. 

His nomination was a shock to many people of both par- 
ties. Hitherto, except for a brief period during the war, 
the high officials of the State had been men of education or 
special abilities, or of property and conservative instincts. 
The State had not learned to trust new men from the people, 
who asked votes for responsible places, who had had no 
training and no family history. Moreover, they were 
alarmed at the revolutionary views advanced, and were par- 
ticularly solicitous for the constitution. Hence a new party 
was formed for a short time with a single object. It called 
itself '^ The Tertium Quids," which was soon shortened to 
^^ Quids." McKean was asked to be the candidate. The 
leader of the movement was Alexander J. Dallas, Governor 
Mifflin's Secretary of State, afterwards Secretary of the 
Treasury and of War under President Madison ; with him 
were joined Senator George Logan, the Muhlenbergs, and 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 253 

the Federalists generally. Their cause was supported by 
The Aurora^ and McKean triumphed by five thousand 
majority. 

In 1808 the same issue came up, but the Democrats were 
somewhat toned down. Again they nominated Snyder. 
McKean had served his full constitutional term, and was not 
eligible. The Quids had disappeared and the Federalists 
selected James Eoss, of Pittsburg, a lawyer and college 
graduate, an ex-United States Senator, a man of proven 
ability and character. They felt sure of his election. Could 
it be, they asked, that such a man could be beaten by an 
ignorant store-keeper in a little village, whose only strength 
consisted in his ability to talk German? One enthusiast 
offered an ^^eleven-penny bit" for each vote of Snyder's 
majority against one hundred dollars cash from the other 
side. He had to pay three thousand five hundred and fifty 
dollars. Snyder jDroved immensely popular, and notwith- 
standing a defection of the old family Democrats, like the 
Muhlenbergs, who took four thousand to John Spayd, he 
was elected by sixty- eight thousand votes to forty thousand 
for Eoss. He also served three triennial terms, being re- 
elected with but little opposition. The fears of his oppo- 
nents were not realized : while not a student of govern- 
ment, he used the great powers of his office with discretion, 
and his appointees, who were many and held important 
stations, were well chosen. He was fortunate in holding 
office during and following the War of 1812, when the 
opposition was completely demoralized. 

An incident which stretched over all the years from 1778 
to 1809 settled an important principle, and at one time 
seemed almost to make Pennsylvania a rebellious State. 

During the revolutionary war a number of prisoners were 
captured by a British ship and were ordered to be taken to 
Jamaica. On their way, under the leadership of Gideon 
Olmstead, they took command of the vessel, confined the 
crew in the cabin, and sailed for the United States. A Penn- 
sylvania brig overhauled them, brought them into Phila- 
deli)hia, and claimed the ship and cargo as a prize. This 



254 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

claim was contested by Olmstead, who considered lie had the 
capture already completed, and the case was tried in a Penn- 
sylvania court before Judge Eoss. The strange decision 
was that Olmstead should have one-fourth and the second 
captors three- fourths of the proceeds. Olmstead appealed, 
and the money, fifty thousand i)ounds continental, was held 
by David Eittenhouse, the treasurer of the state. 

The appeal had to be made to a committee of the Conti- 
nental Congress, which reversed the decision of the State 
court, and directed the whole sum to be given to Olmstead. 
The State denied the right of Congress to overset its conclu- 
sions, and would not pay the money. Nothing could be 
done. Time passed away, and in 1788 the Federal Constitu- 
tion was adopted. Olmstead now saw some hope, and sued 
the executors of Judge Eoss, who in turn sued Eittenhouse, 
but the Supreme Court of the State, under Chief Justice 
McKean, refused to sustain the suits. In 1795, the Supreme 
Court of the United States decided that the old judicial de- 
cisions of the Continental Congress were valid, and when 
Olmstead heard of this decision in 1803 he appealed to a 
United States Court and obtained a decree for the money. 
But Eittenhouse was dead, and his heirs, two elderly widows, 
had settled his estate. McKean was now governor, and was 
in a condition to fortify his old decision. He had the Legis- 
lature pass a bill ordering the ladies to pay the money to 
the State Treasurer. It was an act of defiance against the 
power of the United States. 

Here matters rested till, in 1808, Olmstead took his case 
to the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice 
Marshall gave an unequivocal decision, directing the money 
to be paid. The State militia surrounded the house of the 
Eittenhouse daughters, and prevented the United States 
Marshal from serving a warrant. He undertook to collect 
troops, and it seemed that the great question of the supreme 
authority of the Federal Government was to be fought out in 
the streets of Philadelphia. 

The Legislature finally gave eighteen thousand dollars to 
Governor Snyder to do with as he i^leased. He preferred 




ROBERT FULTON. 



i HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 255 

submission to rebellion, and Olmstead, after waiting thirty- 
one years, got his money. In 1861, South Carolina decided 
to resist the federal authorities, and the Civil War followed. 

Internal improvements were rapidly transforming Penn- 
sylvania. Turnpikes, with toll-houses, made travelling good 
between all cities of note, even in the spring-time. The Lan- 
caster road was extended to Pittsburg, and in 1804 a regular 
stage line was established. It started once a week, and re- 
quired a week to make the journey. About three weeks 
more would take the traveller on boats down the Ohio and 
Mississij^pi to New Orleans. Turnpike travelling was ex- 
pensive. It required about five dollars and fifty cents to 
pay the tolls between Philadelphia and 'New York, and the 
slow progress made hotel bills quite an item. Bridges over 
the Schuylkill at Market Street and over the Delaware at 
Trenton were constructed at this time, and numerous canal 
companies were chartered. In 1802, Market Street was 
paved as far west as Ninth Street, and Chestnut Street to 
Fifth Street. The built-up portion of the city was inter- 
spersed with open lots, frequently with their forest trees 
upon them. Opposite the State house on Chestnut Street 
were large walnut trees, where the Indians encamped in the 
days of William Penn. 

Fitch found a worthy successor in steam propulsion in 
Oliver Evans, who worked himself and family into want in 
his endeavors to construct steam-engines to draw vehicles on 
the Lancaster Pike. He made, in 1814, the astounding as- 
sertion that steam would one day carry passengers fifteen 
or twenty miles an hour. 

In 1807, Eobert Fulton, who was born in Lancaster County, 
made his first commercially successful steamboat. Two 
years later one built at Hoboken came around by the ocean, 
and started regular trips on the Delaware between Philadel- 
phia and Burlington, and about the same time other boats, 
propelled by steam, went back and forth across the river. 

Anthracite coal was coming into better repute. The 
original objection that it ''would not burn, only glow," lost 
its seriousness. The old mill, established by William Penn's 



256 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

orders before his second visit, in the northern part of the 
present Philadelphia, was fitted with machinery for cotton, ; 
wool, and hemp. President Washington was surprised, in 
1797, to find that one boy could spin in one day two hundred 
and ninety-two thousand feet of flax thread, or weave ^'fifteen 
or twenty yards of sail cloth." The power was, of course, 
water. Soon after this, it, as well as other mills, made also 
cotton cloths and prints. Woollen mills sprang up, and 
large numbers of merino sheep were imported from Spain. 
The War of 1812 stopped importations and greatly stimu- 
lated manufactures. 

Iron plants were being rapidly developed. The Phoenix 
Works, at Phoenix ville, date from 1790, and a few years 
later Coatesville became an important centre of the industry. 

The only banks in Pennsylvania in 1802 were the United 
States Bank, the Bank of Pennsylvania, and the Bank of 
Xorth America. These had branches for deposit and dis- 
count in Lancaster, Beading, and Pittsburg. During Gov- 
ernor Snyder's administration there came a great craze for 
banks. Forty were chartered at one time. The governor 
vetoed the acts, but the Legislature passed them over the 
veto. The State was filled with bank notes, without ade- 
quate security. In the great demand for business, farmers 
were encouraged to borrow, with promise of easy terms, in 
order to make improvements to buildings and fences. When 
the notes, already heavily discounted, became due, they 
were unable to pay, and purchasers reaped bargains at 
forced sales. This, in turn, tended to make banks un- 
popular and unprofitable. 

The shipping business, which had its head-quarters in 
Philadelphia, brought in the largest returns in the early 
years of the century. Trade was carried on in American 
vessels, with the West Indies and South America, with Cal- 
cutta, Canton, and the East, and with the ports of Europe. 
In 1804 eighteen hundred vessels left the port, and in time 
returned with rich cargoes. The wharves were busy places, 
and shipping merchants were rapidly made rich. 

Chief among them was Stephen Girard. He was born in 




STEPHEN GIRARD. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 257 

France, in 1750, and bred to the sea. With a very limited 
education he sailed as a cabin boy to the West Indies, and 
was soon promoted, from post to post, till he became mate, 
then captain. In 1769 he came to Philadelphia, and was 
shipmaster and merchant till the revolutionary war. Then 
he became grocer and bottler and sold to the Continental 
army. In 1782 he leased a block of stores, and subletting 
them at advanced prices, laid the foundation of a fortune. 
When the servile insurrection in Hayti broke out, he had 
two vessels in the harbor of Cape Francois. The frightened 
whites placed their valuables on them for safe keeping, and 
returning to shore were murdered. Girard advertised the 
goods, but no claimants appearing he made fifty thousand 
dollars by their sale. 

His was a strange and contradictory character. The loss 
of one eye and coarse and odd-fitting garments made him a 
conspicuous figure. Exacting the last penny due him, num- 
bering the fruit on his trees, and requiring his gardener to 
account for it all, never doing a generous deed to business 
associate or friend, he yet subscribed heavily to charities. 
Xot professing belief in Christianity, and naming his ves- 
sels after noted infidels, he gave liberally to church build- 
ings of all denominations on the ground that they were 
improving the city. Violent and unbearable to wife and 
brother, he yet bore in his own arms, with the livid face 
upon his shoulder, the dying victims of yellow fever, as he 
sought them among the deserted houses, and conveyed them 
to his carriage, and thence to the hospital. He was a mas- 
terful, courageous, ever-successful, but a friendless man. 
His motives seemed to be to make money and have his 
way, and everything was crushed in his path. His vast 
financial services to his nation, and his unmatched charities 
to his city, are yet to be narrated. 

While Philadelphia was enjoying her prosperity, Pitts- 
burg, at the other end of the State, was a busy hive of in- 
dustry. Through this city passed the most of the western 
and southwestern trade and the current of migration. 
Thither the merchandise and the stream of settlers found 

17 



258 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

their way, and there they sought the means to prosecute 
their westward journey. Boats for freight, for a colony, 
or for a family could be bought and they never returned, 
for they floated down with the current of the Ohio, and 
there was no known method of forcing them against it. 
So the demand was constant. The salt from western Xew 
York passed through on its way eastward, and the clothing, 
medicine, and everything needed by farmers and frontiers- 
men, which the soil and forests would not produce, on its 
way westward from Philadelphia. 

But this prosperity was to receive a severe check by the 
suicidal embargo and non- importation measures of the 
Democratic Congress. The opposition to English encroach- 
ment was rising higher and higher. That nation claimed 
the right to seize every vessel bound to an enemy's country, 
unless she had first paid duties at an English port. If 
she did, Napoleon seized her. England also claimed the 
right to search all American vessels to see if there were 
British sailors on board, and if so, they were impressed into 
her navy. The condition was becoming serious, but Jeffer- 
son did not want war, and did all he could to avert it. 
Moreover, the country was totally unprepared. He there- 
fore, in 1807, suggested to Congress a prohibition of all com- 
merce with foreign ports, accompanied by bonds from the 
owners of all vessels engaged in the coasting trade, that 
they would not trade outside the United States. Congress 
promptly passed such an act. 

The amount of damage this did abroad was small com- 
pared with the injury sustained at home. When the act was 
passed, every vessel at Philadelphia made the greatest haste 
to get away. They went half loaded or entirely empty. 
The crews, if not complete, were made up of landsmen. Then 
the port was closed and the boats lay unemployed. Com- 
merce was killed. Dependent manufacturers next suffered, 
and finally the farmers, without foreign market, found their 
produce on their hands diminishing in value, while sugar, 
tea, and coffee were costing them more than ever. British 
trade, freed from a formidable competitor, flourished apace. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 259 

A great cry went up against the pernicious act. This began 
at the seaports which suffered the most, and where the Feder- 
alists were strongest, and echoed through the country. Gal- 
latin wrote that Pennsylvania, the stronghold of democracy, 
was a doubtful State. At the Presidential election, in 1808, 
had the matter been decided by popular vote, the Demo- 
crats would probably have been defeated, but in most of 
the States the electors were chosen by the legislatures. 
These were Democratic, and James Madison was elected. 

Though the party had triumphed, yet the unpopularity 
of the embargo acts remained, and this was not much di- 
minished by their restriction to English and French trade, 
which soon followed. They proved as unfortunate for the 
Democrats as the alien and sedition laws had for the Federal- 
ists, and nothing but the excitement due to the coming war 
prevented the ruin of the party which fathered them. The 
acts expired by limitation or otherwise. English aggression 
continued, and the country slowly drifted into war. 

Pennsylvania cast her twenty electoral votes for Jefferson 
and Clinton in 1804, and for Madison and Clinton in 1808. 
Her statesman, Gallatin, was Secretary of the Treasury from 
1801 to 1813, and performed his duties with distinguished 
ability. He opposed the war, and when he resigned it was 
for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of peace. From 
1816 to 1823 he was resident minister at Paris, and shortly 
after retired from public life. 

It was in this first decade of the nineteenth century that 
a little group of writers was accustomed to call Philadel- 
phia "the Athens of America." And though it must be 
confessed she was a feeble imitation of the Greek capital, 
yet the amount of literary work done was not at all dis- 
creditable, and was certainly greater than in any other 
American city. 

The first American novelist, Charles Brockden Brown, 
was the chief figure in the group. He was born in Phila- 
delphia, in 1771, of Quaker parents, and educated at their 
public school, under the historian Eobert Proud. His novels 
were mainly published from 1790 to 1800, and in one of 



260 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

them he graphically describes the yellow fever epidemics 
in the city. 

The most of the work of the Philadelphia authors was, 
however, printed in magazine form. In 1740 Bradford and 
Franklin each announced a magazine. The first was short 
lived. Franklin's, '* The General Magazine and Historical 
Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," had a 
longer history. Numerous attempts were made from this 
time, before and during the revolutionary war, to sustain 
monthly magazines, but they did not usually last more than 
a year or two. The best of these was the American Maga- 
zine^ started in 1757, which numbered among its contribu- 
tors, Provost Smith, who was also editor, Francis Hopkinson, 
and James Sterling. It also published James Logan' s letters. 
The magazine became in a sense the mouth-piece of the 
American Philosophical Societj'. Then followed the Penn- 
sylvania Magazine, of which Tom Paine was editor, the 
United States Magazine, in whose pages we find the work 
of one whom Washington called a rascal, but who was one 
of the gifted writers of the last century, Philip Freneau, 
the Columbian Magazine, and the American Museum. As the 
year 1800 apj)roached, the number became too great for 
separate mention. They were, however, often successors to 
each other, building on the ruins of the last attempt, and 
passing on their assets to the next rash adventurer. 

The most interesting figure in magazine literature was 
Joseph Dennie, a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of 
Harvard, who, in 1799, came to Philadelphia as secretary to 
Timothj^ Pickering, then Secretary of State. He soon 
abandoned politics, and in 1801 started the Port Folio, which 
he edited till his death in 1812, and which long survived 
him. He surrounded himself with a little company, which 
included, practically, all the literary talent of the country. 
^^In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Philadel- 
phia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour 
through the States afforded me," wrote Tom Moore in 1804. 
The company contained, among others, Charles Brockden 
Brown, John Blair Linn, Alexander Graydou, Josiah 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 261 

Quinc}, Joseph Hopkiuson, and Horace Binney. Benja- 
min West was brought to the recollection of his American 
friends by a series of original letters written from London, 
and by accounts of his noted paintings. Leigh Hunt, though 
born in England, was the child of Philadelphia parents, his 
father and Benjamin West having married sisters. He was 
considered a member of the Port Folio company, and his 
work was frequently commended. 

These devoted followers of Pope and Addison found 
literature a barren field for profitable effort, and are all but 
forgotten now. Their work is interesting as affording the 
first serious essay to plant a literary enterprise upon Amer- 
ican soil. 

Other rather ambitious attempts show the literary spirit 
of the city. ^^Eees's CycloiDaedia,'' in many volumes, was 
printed, and ^^ Wilson's Ornithology" was issued, on 
American-made paper. Alexander Wilson was a Scotch- 
man, who found a congenial home in Philadelphia, and was 
a frequent contributor to the Port Folio and other magazines 
of the day. 

This literary supremacy of Philadelphia lasted till about 
1820, when New England began to surpass her. It was 
partially restored by Graham'' s Magazine^ of later date. Her 
scientific standing was more durable, and her physicians 
and medical schools have never ceased to stand at the front. 

The State was also producing her great jurists. After 
McKean himself no one stood higher than John B. Gibson. 
He became Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
State in 1816, and Chief Justice in 1827, which position he 
retained almost to his death in 1853. Both McKean and 
Gibson had more than a State or even national reputation ; 
their opinions were quoted in England. 

But while in a small society there was intellectual life, 
and not a few educated men were scattered over the country, 
there was a vast mass of ignorance and rudeness. The 
Legislature had never taken advantage of the provision of 
the constitution to establish free schools for the poor, and it 
is questionable whether the education of this class was any 



262 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

better provided for than it was twenty-five years before. As 
a result, there was the crudeness in customs of the people 
which attends a vigorous, energetic, but uneducated com- 
munity. If law was not efficient, justice was taken in 
hand by the sufferer, and he dispensed it in a rude form. 
John Binns, who was Governor Snyder's chief adviser, and 
the editor of The Democratic Press of Philadelphia, describes 
a process of '^ gouging,'^ which an editor in the back districts 
who displeased a reader might have to submit to. The 
aggrieved party would pinion the hands of the offender by 
one arm and by the thumb of the other hand quickly but 
cruelly gouge out his eye. Binns says he fought the last 
duel ever fought in Pennsylvania, which was in Northumber- 
land, in 1805. The influence of Christianity, the feeling of 
responsibility for government, which always exists in a free 
country, the respect paid to men of ability and training, and 
the education derived from business, kept the country to a 
large degree wholesome and progressive, under conditions 
which might otherwise have wrought its ruin. The great 
body of the people always meant to have honesty in politics, 
even though they did not always secure it. Contrary, 
perhaps, to general opinion, there has been no retrogres- 
sion since the days of Washington and Jefferson. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

1810-1817. 

War of 1812— Pennsylvania's Part^ — Prejudice against Common Law — 
Harrisburg made Capital — The United States Bank — Stephen 
Girard— Alexander J. Dallas— Effect of the War on Industry- 
Inflation and Depression— State Finances— Banks— Emigration and 
Immigration — Growth of Charitable Institutions. 

The country went into the War of 1812 without any mili- 
tary or financial preparation. Both Jefferson and Madison 
were opposed to it, and had not the latter yielded in 1812 he 
could hardly have been renominated for the Presidency. 
The younger men of the party, led by Henry Clay, demanded 
an open war rather than a continuance of embargoes, and 
the multitude re-echoed the demand. 

Pennsylvania gave her electoral vote to Madison in 1808, 
and again in 1812. In 1811 she voted almost unanimously 
for Snyder for a second term, and elected him a third time, 
by a large majority, three years later. Except in Philadel- 
phia and vicinity the State was loyal to the national ad- 
ministration and the war. 

Early in 1812 the Pennsylvania Legislature promised to 
stand by the general government in decisive measures. Both 
her senators and all her representatives but two voted for 
the war, and these two were not returned. No enemy set 
foot on her soil, yet she furnished more men and money than 
any other State. Her expenses for the war, which were 
afterwards paid by the United States Government, were 
two hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars, besides twice 
as much more, which she assumed herself, and she offered 
to subscribe one million dollars to an issue of United States 
bonds. 

Twice during the war there seemed a prospect of invasion. 
To resist a threatened attack from Canada a body of troops 

263 



204 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

was concentrated at Erie to guard the lake frontier. This 
fear was largely dissipated by the successful naval battle of 
Oliver H. Perry. Making a fleet out of unseasoned lumber, 
gathering scraps of iron from every available source, calling 
in men and supplies from the country around, and finally 
lifting his ships over the bar, he was ready to fight. It was 
not an unequal contest, but American seamanship and 
marksmanship triumphed, as they always did in this war, 
and Perry sent ofi" his famous despatch, beginning, ^'We 
have met the enemy and they are ours." 

The citizens of Philadelphia were frequently fearful of the 
operations of the enemy's boats, which kept up a blockade 
of the coast during most of the war. All through 1813 
British shii)s hovered about the mouth of the Delaware. 
The militia of the eastern counties were called out on several 
occasions. The most serious was in September, 1814, after 
the capture of Washington. The British had defeated the 
American army, burned the Capitol, and with a little force 
of five thousand men terrorized the whole country. It 
was uncertain which way they would move, but Philadel- 
phia resolved to be prepared. Defences were thrown up 
west of the Schuylkill, the forts on the Delaware were re- 
paired, a military association was created and men enlisted, 
and a camp was formed at Kennett Square, near the 
Maryland line. But the English, after remaining five 
weeks on Maryland soil, quietly re-embarked, leaving the 
million or more of terror-stricken inhabitants to their own 
reflections. The Legislature was divided in opinion, whether 
the necessary force should be supplied by conscription or 
voluntary enlistment, and while they were debating the ques- 
tion peace was declared. James Buchanan, of Lancaster, 
afterwards President of the United States, was serving his 
first term in the Legislature, and participated in the debate, 
speaking earnestly against conscription. He was then a 
Federalist and opposed to the war. 

Pennsylvania supplied to the service, outside her own 
boundaries, several distinguished men. 

In every war there has been ^' a fighting Quaker," and the 




JAMES BUCHANAN. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 265 

fighting Quaker of the War of 1812 was Jacob Brown. He 
was born in Bucks County, in 1775, and in 1812 found him- 
self commander of the frontier for two hundred miles east 
of Oswego. To the dreary history of defeat and incom- 
petency which characterized the land operations of the 
early part of the war, Brown was a striking exception. He 
repelled two attacks of superior forces of British, and was 
rapidly advanced, first to Brigadier- and then to Major- 
General. Placed in command of an invading army in 1814, 
he defeated the British in several battles, and ''no enter- 
prise that he undertook ever failed." For these victories 
he was thanked by Congress, and was awarded a gold medal. 
He finally became General-in-Chief of the United States 
Army. 

The war was, however, essentially a naval war ; and 
Perry's victory on Lake Erie, Macdonough's victory on 
Lake Champlain, and the various duels between ships on 
the Atlantic, in which the Americans were almost always 
the victors, aroused the greatest enthusiasm. Stephen 
Decatur spent much of his youth in Philadelphia, where his 
father lived. His war record was conspicuous, though his 
most essential service was the defeat and humiliation of the 
Barbary powers, for which he received the thanks of all 
Europe. James Biddle was a native of Philadelphia, as 
his ancestors had been. His career in the navy during and 
after the war, till his death in 1848, displayed high capacity 
and character. Congress voted him a gold medal, and his 
native city presented him a service of plate in 1815. Charles 
Stewart was also born in Philadelphia. For his victories 
and brilliant services he finally reached the rank of rear- 
admiral. At the close of the War of 1812, honors of all 
kinds were heaped upon him by Congress and his State. 
His soubriquet was ''Old Ironsides." He lived to seethe 
civil war. His daughter was the mother of the Irish home- 
rule leader, Charles Stewart Parnell. In the work of these 
three brilliant naval officers, Pennsylvania reaped her share 
of the honors of the ocean warfare. 

In the main, the land operations were a series of bungling 



266 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and abortive attempts, but the skill of American seamen 
and the effectiveness of American ships and gunnery were 
abundantly shown, and the nation in general would endorse 
Webster's summarj^, '^However we may differ as to what 
has been done or attempted on land, our differences cease 
at the water's edge.'' 

The zeal of the Democrats for a revision of the State 
constitution perceptibly cooled after the election of Snyder. 
The main objection, the large powers vested in the governor, 
did not seem so objectionable when their own popular leader 
held that position. They set themselves, however, to work 
to limit the power of judges. A strong prejudice against 
courts and lawyers and the common law existed, and judicial 
interference with liberty seemed the object of especial jeal- 
ousy. In 1809 it was enacted that contempt of court could 
only be punished if committed within the court-room during a 
session, thus removing all newspaper publications from this 
form of official displeasure. It was also decreed that if 
either party preferred arbitration to a legal trial it must be 
granted. As a further limitation, and also as indicating the 
growing opposition to England, a law was passed in 1811 
prohibiting any decision made in that country since July 
4, 1776, being cited as an authority in any court of justice. 
This remained on the statute-book for twenty years. The 
mace was ordered cast out of the door of the assembly 
room, as an objectionable English institution. 

The Aurora^ which had for its political partner United 
States Senator Michael Leib, finding it could not control 
Snyder, but that Binns and The Democratic Press were to be 
his allies, attacked him as lacking in character and capacity. 
Hence arose a division among the Democrats chiefly around 
Philadelphia, but the body of the State stood by the gov- 
ernor, who appears never to have lost his popularity. 

Lancaster did not prove a satisfactory capital for the 
State. The Legislature met in rented halls, and it was 
felt that the dignity and respect due them were affected by 
their position as tenants. Early in 1809 a resolution was 
introduced into the State Senate that a permanent seat of 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 267 

government should be selected, leaving the place blank. 
Philadelphia could only muster eight votes out of twenty- 
four. IN'orthumberland, at the forks of the Susquehanna, 
had seven. The little town growing up opposite John 
Harris's Ferry received fourteen. The other house ratified 
the choice, and in 1810 Harrisburg became the State capital. 
Prior to the erection of buildings, Lancaster, in 1818, made 
a liberal offer to bring the government back. She would 
appropriate twenty-five thousand dollars to erect a capitol. 
The committee report was favorable, but the house dis- 
sented. 

In 1814 the enthusiasm of the Pennsylvanians for the war 
was evidently cooling. The State sent five Federalists to 
the national house, three of whom came from Philadelphia. 
The Federalist candidate for governor against Snyder, Isaac 
Wayne (the son of General Wayne), received about thirty- 
three thousand votes, a striking increase as compared with the 
three thousand six hundred the party polled three years be- 
fore. In fact both parties were tired of it, and the Eepub- 
licans saw that peace must soon be made or that they must 
lose power. Their strength lay in Pennsylvania and the 
States south. The Keystone State could control the polit- 
ical situation by giving her strength to New England, and 
symptoms of disaffection were eagerly watched by both 
sections. 

This changed feeling was still farther shown when, after 
the defeat of Napoleon in Leipsic, a great public meeting 
was held in Philadelphia to celebrate the event. Though 
that imperious personage had not been a friend to America, 
he was an enemy of Britain, and his triumi^h would humble 
the enemies of America. Yet the rejoicing in the city over 
what was supposed to be his final defeat was general and 
sincere. Western and central Pennsylvania were, however, 
true to their history, and the hereditary hatred of England 
was nowhere in the country more intense. 

The charter of the United States Bank, located in Phila- 
delphia and founded by Hamilton, expired by limitation 
in 1811. The attempt to renew this charter was the subject 



268 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

of a violent political warfare. The Federalists and the 
conservative Democrats, like Gallatin, pointed out its past 
invaluable services, and its necessity in case of a war to 
handle the loans and steady the currency. They also de- 
clared there would be a breach of faith and loss of credit 
involved in its demolition. Tlie objections to it were 
partly the jealousy of wealth and monopoly and profitable 
ventures, always characteristic of the American people. 
It was furthermore claimed that its influence was used to 
further partisan politics ; that men had their accounts 
closed who did sign certain political memorials ; that in 
South Carolina discounts were curtailed as a penalty for 
voting the wrong way ; that the major i)ortion of the stock 
was owned in England, and that the profits drained the 
country of good money. 

One of the men who did not believe that the Congress 
would dare to refuse to continue the charter was Stephen 
Girard. That ' ^ mariner and merchant' ' had now collected a 
great fortune, and finding that the English investors were 
frightened and anxious to sell, he purchased stock to the 
extent of a half a million dollars. 

But he was mistaken. The Senate, by the casting vote 
of Vice-President Clinton, refused to renew the charter, 
and Girard' s speculation did not succeed. Profoundly con- 
vinced of the necessity of a great bank to the financial in- 
terests of the country, and ambitious to avert the evils and 
reap the profits which he felt were sure to follow, he bought 
the bank, a great marble building still standing on Third 
Street below Chestnut, and started the Girard Bank, with a 
capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars. The 
business of the old bank came to him with the five million 
dollars of specie in its vaults, and the same cashier and 
officers continued, so that he succeeded to the confidence 
and credit of the national institution. 

So prudently was the business conducted that when the 
suspension of specie payments, which soon overwhelmed 
the country, came, Girard' s notes almost alone never de- 
preciated, and were paid in gold. His prompt command 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 269 

of great resources was on several occasions strikingly shown. 
In 1813 his ship ^^ Montesquieu" was captured at the mouth 
of the Delaware by a British frigate. Her captors were 
aware of the risks of being retaken, and offered, for ninety- 
three thousand dollars in gold, to give up the ship. This 
was an easy problem for Girard, though in those days it 
would have troubled almost any one else. The amount was 
promptly paid. The goods had risen in value, and the 
banker profited by their sale to the extent of half a million 
dollars. 

A more daring transaction resulted in eminent service 
to his country the following year. The credit of the 
government was practically gone, its available resources 
almost drained, and the Xew England States were talking 
secession. Gallatin had estimated that the receipts for 1813 
would be twelve million dollars, the expenses thirty-two 
million dollars. The treasury was empty, and a loan must 
be obtained. But the i)opular subscription was a manifest 
failure, and a few men of wealth, notably Stephen Girard, 
after all other resources were gone, subscribed for the whole 
amount. He made hard terms, — eighty-eight dollars paid 
in for one hundred dollars of bonds, at six per cent., but he 
also took great chances. Whether this was patriotism, willing 
to risk its all for the credit of the country, or simply the 
shrewd operation of a far-seeing man of business has been 
differently estimated. Both objects were gained. The 
effect on public credit was instantaneous. Men who before 
were timorous and critical, now rushed forward, demanding 
a share. It was granted them on the original terms. The 
bold purchaser reaped his reward in the great apprecia- 
tion of the bonds. It is hard to conceive the depth of the 
difficulty from which this simple act rescued his country, 
and Stephen Girard must be added to the list, which already 
contained Morris, Hamilton, and Gallatin, of the country's 
financial benefactors. 

The act was repeated in a different form in 1816. His 
fi'iend, Alexander J. Dallas, was now Secretary of the 
Treasury, and he conceived it to be necessary to re-establish 



270 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the National Bank, a step which had Girard's cordial ap- 
proval. He waited till the last day of receiving subscrip- 
tions, and then placed his name down for the balance, three 
million one hundred thousand dollars. Then, as before, 
there arose a great demand, and Girard disposed of half his 
holding at cost. 

The country did its best to adaj^t itself to the war. The 
coasting trade being destroyed, great lines of wagons plodded 
up and down the coast roads from Boston to Savannah. 
This made business for the toll-houses, the ferries, and the 
inns, and farmers found a market for horses, and wheel- 
wrights for vehicles. The trade was encouraged by the 
high prices and vast profits of transference. There was 
plenty of wheat, but flour brought seventeen dollars a barrel 
in Boston. Other things were proportionally high, and as 
there seemed no limit to the increase, speculators bought 
to sell again later. This was ruinous to consumers, and 
associations were formed in Philadelphia and elsewhere to 
limit prices. Of course, this was unavailing ; prices could 
not be permanently forced. The blockade was being drawn 
closer. Many of the American privateers, after destroying 
hundreds of British merchant ships and fighting scores of 
armed vessels, had been themselves destroyed. ]^othing 
could be gotten into the country or out of it, and the great 
expenses raised taxes. The government was almost bank- 
Twpt. It hardly had even a home. Since the burning of 
the Capitol, Philadelphia and Lancaster both wanted the 
seat of government, and the proposition to move to the 
former city was defeated by a majority of only nine. 

Manufactures flourished vigorously. They had no foreign 
competition, and prices were high. The development of 
not a few industries dates from this war. 

Great Britain had suffered no less severely, and both 
parties were willing to make peace without saying a word 
about the main cause of the war, — the impressment of sailors 
and the right of search. The battle of I^ew Orleans, gained 
after the treaty was signed but before the news reached the 
country, gave a parting gleam of success to the Americans. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 271 

A vast fleet of merchantmen was ready in the Delaware 
Eiver, to leave at the first day of safety. All maritime 
trades received a great impulse, and when the European 
ships began to come in, the revival showed itself every- 
where. Since the days of the first embargo in 1807, there 
had been no free entrance for foreign goods. For three years 
there had been absolute prohibition, and the appetite of the 
people was whetted. They were willing to use American 
goods from patriotic motives, but they sighed for the silks 
and fine muslins, the tea and the coffee, from which all but 
the very wealthy had been deprived. 

The importers made fortunes immediately, and as one of 
the unfortunate results of the war, the fever of speculation 
raged disastrously. When the natural demand was satisfied, 
credit was extended and bills contracted and the foundation 
laid for a financial crisis a few months later. Manufacturers 
were prostrated by the cessation of demand for home-made 
goods, and in self-preservation demanded the adoption of 
the policy which has played so important a place in Ameri- 
can politics and American development, a tariff for pro- 
tection. 

A Pennsylvania lawyer, Alexander J. Dallas, was placed, 
in 1814, at the head of the Treasury Department. Nothing 
could well be in a worse condition than the national finances 
at that date. Credit was exhausted, and expenses far ex- 
ceeded income. People would not stand an increase of 
direct taxes. The currency was in utter confusion. The 
banks had issued paper far in excess of their ability to re- 
deem, and the United States Treasury was in no condition 
to pay out specie. 

Two measures seemed indispensable to Dallas, a national 
bank and a protective tax on imports. To the latter of 
these provisions Pennsylvania was faithful then as ever, and 
her member, Samuel D. Ingham, led the party which de- 
clared that the purpose of the duty was not only money, 
but industrial independence of England. The tax was 
levied mainly on cotton and woollen goods and on sugar. 
The South was again her ally, but New England, fearful of 



272 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

her shipping interests, opposed. The factories of Philadel- 
phia and Pittsburg were a unit in demanding the tariff, and 
for once the East and the West joined hands. Gradually 
strengthening measures to adjust the tariff taxes to actual 
wants and to intercept evasive measures followed in suc- 
cession, and the country, with Pennsylvania in the lead, 
was committed to the j^rotective policy. Its originator was 
the Democratic Secretary, Dallas, and its chief supporter the 
Democratic leader, Henry Clay. 

The bank, which was also Dallas's work, was afterwards 
to be an object of intense dislike to the Democratic party. 
The dismal confusion of the currency system could have no 
other remedy, and so a bill for a bank devoted to strength- 
ening the credit of the country and leading the way to a 
resumption of specie payments passed the Congress. The 
bank was located in Philadelphia, and the present Custom 
House building on Chestnut Street was erected for it. 

The early years of the century saw a short-lived fever for 
State banks. Pennsylvania, over the veto of her governor, 
had chartered about forty, which added to the paper but 
not to the resources of the State. These could do nothing 
towards resumption till the old institutions led the way, 
and it was not till 1817 that these felt that the step could 
safely be taken. When at last the day came, there was but 
little demand for specie, and no run on the banks. 

About the same time, Dallas resigned to resume his pro- 
fession of law. In his brief control of the Treasury he had 
seen the currency of the country steadied, the military es- 
tablishment reduced to ten thousand men, and other ex- 
penses curtailed, while the income was increased, credit 
built up, and taxation adjusted so as to be easily borne. 
The country was always rich. The war had confused it, 
but its resources in private hands were not seriously im- 
paired. It was the merit of the financier to organize and 
draw out these resources and make them available to natural 
uses. Dallas had estimated the customs receipts at 
twenty-one million dollars. They amounted to thirty-six 
million dollars, and he could see a surplus in the Treasury 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 273 

at the end of the year of twenty million dollars. His State 
stood by the party record. In the last days of the Madison 
administration, in December, 1816, the Pennsylvania As- 
sembly passed a resolution ai)proving the official conduct 
of the President by a vote of fifty to thirty- one. 

The revolutionary soldiers of Pennsylvania had been 
given lands and pensions. In 1817 only three hundred and 
thirty-seven were left in the State, and their pensions were 
increased to make a comfortable allowance for old age. The 
State could afford to be generous, for her treasurer had given 
a favorable budget for this year. He would have two 
hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars to start the year 
with. The income would be three hundred and six thousand 
dollars, the expenses two hundred and seventeen thousand 
dollars, leaving an estimated redundancy of three hundred 
and seventy-four thousand dollars. This, however, included 
dividends on banks, in which the State was a heavy stock- 
holder, an item which in the precarious times to follow 
might be reduced. The sale of lands was expected to yield 
eighty thousand dollars, auction duties seventy thousand 
dollars, and tavern licenses thirty thousand dollars. 

While the condition of the United States Treasury and 
the State Treasury were thus satisfactory, the hard times 
spread from the speculators to the people. As the old banks 
in self-defence would attempt to curtail their loans and col- 
lect their mortgages, new ones more accommodating would 
be chartered, and the loans would be renewed. Pennsyl- 
vania had fifty-nine banks in 1818. Many farms were 
mortgaged, and many a farmer, hopeless of escape from his 
creditors, moved westward to the fertile fields of Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois. It was impossible to find specie to 
redeem the notes. Even the Philadelphia banks, the best 
in the country, had out notes tenfold in excess of the metal 
in their vaults. 

The loss of population was compensated by the English 
and Irish immigrants, who came as soon as peace was 
declared. The former were well-to-do, and pushed west- 
ward, the latter desperately poor, and remained in the 

18 



274 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

eastern cities, where they rapidly improved their condition. 
The substitution of the old inhabitants by the foreigners 
was not in general favorably regarded, and violent preju- 
dices began to manifest themselves. 

German redemptioners were still being brought in. Kept 
in their filthy boats on the Delaware they were adver- 
tised at from sixty to eighty dollars each. Eagerly they 
looked for a purchaser of their services. Many were skilled 
tradesmen, and readily found places, and when their passage 
money was worked out, became prosperous citizens. Others, 
less fortunate, were doomed to months of slavery. Those 
who had been in the country, frequently bought up the new 
arrivals. An instance is related of a man who wanted ser- 
vants, and secured three on a boat. When they reached his 
house they proved to be his father, mother, and sister. 

The bank failures were especially severe in Pennsylvania 
and the States south. New England was opposed to the 
war, and loaned but little to the general government. The 
blockade along her coast was easy, and she sold to the rest 
of the Union all the foreign merchandise imported, receiving 
their specie in exchange. When the war closed, there was 
a tremendous importation, and the good money went abroad. 
It was nearly ten years before the disorder originating in 
the War of 1812 was allayed. In 1819 and adjacent years 
the times were the hardest. Merchandise was sold at forced 
sales below the cost of production ; almost all manufacturing 
interests closed, and laborers were thrown out of employ- 
ment ; commodities ceased to circulate, and there was a 
ruinous sacrifice of farms. 

With the hard times came pauperism. Philadelphia was 
crowded with men without work. With pauperism came 
organized charity, associations for serving fuel, soup 
houses, and humane societies in large numbers. With 
these came also a careful study of the conditions which pro- 
duced . pauperism, and men stood finally face to face with 
the liquor problem and its vast capacities for evil. Tem- 
perance societies arose. There were more licensed houses 
for the sale of liquor in Philadelphia in 1817 than eighty 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 275 

years later, and the amount of money squandered in these 
was carefully calculated. A memorial was sent by City 
Councils to the Legislature, asking a reduction in the 
number. 

Men began also to doubt whether lotteries were the benefi- 
cent agencies they had seemed to be, and a healthy senti- 
ment against them was rapidly growing. 

The reform movement extended to the prisons. Debtors 
in small amounts were still taken to them, and their lot was 
sad indeed. But now State after State abolished imprison- 
ment for debt, Pennsylvania not being in advance. She, 
however, established the first State prison, a model for many 
others, and led the way to more humane treatment of crimi- 
nals generally, including ^'separate and solitary confine- 
ment at labor," and reformatory influences. An English 
traveller, in 1817, speaks of having seen ^^ a whole town" 
of mechanical workers in the prison, which nearly supported 
itself. The institution, he says, was superior to anything 
in England. He also examined the Pennsylvania Hospital, 
which he called ^'a national honor." 



CHAPTER XVIL 

1817-1829. 

Campaign of 1817 — Findlay and Hiester — Duane and Binns — Growth 
of Nominating Convention — Philadelphia and Pittsburg — Coal In- 
dustry — Canals — The Tariff and Pennsylvania — The Death of Feder- 
alism — Public Improvements and the Growth of the Debt. 

The contest for the governorship in 1817 was exceptionally 
bitter. The large powers of appointment amounting to 
forty or fifty important places, as well as the licensing of 
auctioneers, a valuable monopoly, made the election of great 
moment to the friends of the candidate as well as himself. 
Betting was open and quite general, and the money staked 
on the result added a personal interest to the general politi- 
cal interest involved. The regular Democratic party under 
Governor Snyder, who himself was ineligible to another 
term, presented the name of William Findlay, State Treas- 
urer for ten years. He was supported by all radical Demo- 
crats and received the full Irish vote, a matter now to be 
taken into account. Binns and his paper were valuable 
allies. 

The other parties to the contest were (1) The Federalists, 
(2) the moderate Democrats, who called themselves Indepen- 
dent Republicans, Democrats of the Revolution, and Old 
Schoolmen, who acknowledged the leadership of The Aurora 
and Michael Leib, and (3) a few independents who were called 
Quids. These three parties drew together and nominated 
Joseph Hiester, of Berks County, a man of German descent, 
who was popularly called ''Sauer-Kraut." 

All citizens over twenty -one years of age, who had paid 
taxes, had now the right to vote. The preliminary contest 
for inspectors of election was almost as violent as the 
greater one that followed. Great frauds were afterwards 
charged against the successful party, and there can be no 
276 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 277 

doubt that the election was not largely a high contest for 
principle, but rather a strife for official and financial booty. 
The same is true of many of the succeeding elections. 

The Democratic address to the people is worth quoting, 
as showing the political spirit of the times and the character 
of the motives appealed to : 

'^Citizens! Democrats! Americans! This is the day of 
general election. If you value your own rights, your own 
happiness, your political characters, your liberties or your 
Eepublican institutions, every man to the poll and vote the 
Democratic ticket. It is headed with the name of the 
patriot, William Findlay. Citizens ! the times are momen- 
tous. The seceders from the Democratic ranks have joined 
with our old and inveterate political enemies to put down 
Democracy. It is an unholy league between apostates and 
political traitors on the one part, and on the other the 
Anti-Federalists, the Monarchists, the Aristocrats, the Hart- 
ford Conventionalists,* the Blue-light men,t the Embargo- 
breakers, the Henry ites, J: the men who in time of peace 
cried out for war ! war ! but who, in time of war, called 
themselves the peace party — Huzza for William Findlay 
and no bribery." 

On the other hand, the Federalists issued a descriptive 
circular concei:ning Findlay, in which they described him as 
'^A selfish politician who never served his country, and 

* The Hartford convention was a meeting of New England Federal- 
ists to consider the dissolution of the Union, and was greatly un- 
popular. 

t During the war, Captain Decatur was endeavoring to get out to sea 
from the port of New London, Connecticut, and was closely watched 
by British vessels. He declared that every time he arranged to go out, 
two blue lights would be displayed, which gave warning to the enemy. 
All friends of England came to be known as " Blue-light men." 

t John Henry was an agent of the British Government prior to the 
war, for the purpose of sounding popular opinion in New England. 
He proposed that Massachusetts, which was opposed to the war, 
should make separate terms with England. 

All these names were equivalent to traitors and sympathizers with 
the enemy. 



278 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

always on tlie lookout for office, an apostate Federalist and 
time-server, a constant office-hunter, a Treasury broker and 
public defaulter who exchanged and used public money for 
his own benefit, and is yet to account for misdemeanors in 
office, a barbarian who holds that ' the study of law dis- 
qualifies a man from being a judge.' " The address ends 
with specific rules to detect and counteract election frauds. 

The contest was close. In Philadelphia and adjacent 
counties the vote was two to one in Hiester's favor. The 
German counties also supported him. But the poll showed 
sixty-six thousand votes for Findlay to fifty-nine thousand 
for Hiester. 

The charges intimated in the Federal circular affecting 
Findlay' s integrity as Treasurer were investigated by the 
Legislature, who pronounced his official conduct ''meri- 
torious and beneficial to the State." He was probably 
honest and kind-hearted, and had been betrayed into errors 
by embarrassed circumstances. In 1821 he was elected to 
the United States Senate, where he served one term. In 
1827 to 1840 he was Treasurer of the United States Mint 
at Philadelphia. 

It having been determined to retain the seat of govern- 
ment at Harrisburg, the Capitol was begun under his ad- 
ministration. 

Three years later the same parties with the same candi- 
dates entered the field. By this time Findlay had offended 
Binns, and was consequently vigorously opposed. It was 
charged against him that he was weak and impecunious, 
and had not hesitated to use the interest on public money ; 
that he had promoted the creation of banks, which were in 
these hard times immensely unpopular ; that no beneficent 
results had followed his administration. On the other hand, 
it was said that Hiester was too old (he was now sixty-eight) ; 
that he was a slave-holder ; that he was a man characterless 
and uninfluential. Hiester was elected by the narrow ma- 
jority of sixteen hundred in a poll of about one hundred 
and thirty-four thousand. 

Though Pennsylvania was thus uncertain in State politics. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 279 

she was loyal to the Democratic party in national contests, and 
gave her electoral vote to James Monroe in 1817, and again 
in 1821. The election of Hiester was thus no impeachment 
of her Democracy, but rather the result of the partisan and 
personal differences of the rival editors, Duane and Binns. 
Both of these were of Irish blood. Both had been in trouble 
with the English authorities before coming to Philadelphia, 
and neither hesitated to use the resources of an extensive and 
vituperative vocabulary without stint against an adversary. 

In the struggles of these Democratic editors a system was 
organized which still has an important influence upon the 
political history of the country. 

The candidate for President of the United States had been 
usually nominated by a meeting of party congressmen. In 
the same way governors were nominated by the legislative 
caucus. In 1807 the Democrats of Delaware County, a 
Federal district, called attention to the fact that they had 
had no voice in the selection of candidates for governor, and 
proposed that the Democrats of each county should select 
delegates to meet in convention for the special purpose of 
nominating candidates. It is quite possible that this was a 
Duane movement in the interests of the opposition to Snyder, 
and if so, it failed. But it represented the birth of a new 
idea. It was at first adopted so far as to allow party repre- 
sentatives from minority counties to be incorporated into 
the caucus for nominating purposes. In 1817, Findlay was 
nominated by a convention made up of delegates chosen 
for the special purpose 5 but as many of the members were 
also legislators, the Duane faction held a convention, de- 
nounced the other as a caucus in disguise, and nominated 
Hiester. In 1820 both candidates were presented by repre- 
sentative conventions in the modern way. 

In the language of the day, this was the Pennsylvania 
plan. It rapidly spread to other States, and was finally 
taken up by the national parties. The caucus of legislators 
came to be looked upon as a bad and dangerous system, and 
the popularly elected convention as a reform of great mo- 
ment. 



280 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Philadelphia by 1817 had grown to be a city of over one 
hundred thousand people. The English traveller previously 
quoted, says : ' ' My first impressions of the city were decidedly 
favorable. It gave me an idea of a substantial cast, in pos- 
session of a character essentially different from Xew York. 
It has not so much business, not so much gayety, not so 
much life. But there is in Philadelphia a freedom from 
mere display, a relief from gaudy trappings, an evidence 
of solidity of which its more commercial rival is nearly 
destitute. The streets are clean, and well and regularly 
built. . . . The i)eople live in houses that would adorn any 
city in the world. Eents are twenty-five per cent, lower 
than in Kew York. . . . Philadelphia has done much to 
raise America in my estimation." 

This reputation for quietness and solidity might have been 
a result of the impress of its Quaker settlement. These 
people, however, were now an inconsiderable minority of 
no political weight. Personally many were active in busi- 
ness and philanthropy, but their influence as a body had 
not been seriously felt, except in the matter of slavery, 
since the Eevolution. The churches of the city at that 
time were : one Swedish Lutheran, three Quaker, one 
Free Quaker, four Episcopalian, four Baptist, five Pres- 
byterian, four Eoman Catholic, six German Lutheran, one 
Moravian, one Covenanter, three Methodist, one TJni- 
versalist, one Unitarian, one Independent, one Jew, two 
Black Methodist, one Black Episcopalian. 

New York had outstripped Philadelphia in the race for 
numbers, and slightly also in commerce. In each about the 
same number of immigrants annually landed. In scientific 
and literary reputation the southern city led, and also in 
all charitable enterprises. 

At the other end of the State, Pittsburg was enjoying 
great prosperity. In 1817, when she received her first char- 
ter, she had a population of ten thousand. There were then 
representatives of fortj^-one trades, employing twelve hun- 
dred and eighty workmen, and turning out an annual product 
of nearly two million dollars. There had not been a bank- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 281 

ruptcy for three years, and prosperity seemed assured for 
the future. Though she suffered during the hard times that 
followed, she had already entered on her career of great in- 
dustrial development. 

The State as a whole was growing in wealth in spite of 
wars and bank failures. The valuation of houses and lands 
for the direct tax rose from one hundred and two million 
dollars in 1799, to three hundred and forty-six million dol- 
lars in 1815, while the revenue derived rose from one million 
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to seven million 
one hundred and forty thousand dollars. Her exports the 
latter year were over four million dollars. In rapidity of 
growth of population she exceeded any other State except 
'New York. 

In the contest for western trade she put forth vigorous 
exertions. She appropriated in 1817 five hundred thousand 
dollars for roads, bridges, and creeks. She had over a thou- 
sand miles of turnpikes, and bridges of the longest span 
in the world. Great schemes were laid out to connect the 
head- waters of the Schuylkill with the Susquehanna, of the 
Susquehanna with the Lakes, and of the Juniata with the 
Alleghany. They would then tap Central New York and 
everything west of Pittsburg by boat communication. But 
Kew York anticipated the movement and built the Erie 
Canal. 

The great development of the anthracite coal industry 
dates from these years. In 1812 Josiah White and Erskine 
Hazard were in i)artnership at the Falls of the Schuylkill, in 
the business of wire-making. They bought, at one dollar a 
bushel, a cartload of hard coal, and tried to use it in their 
furnace, but it was all gone before the necessary heat was 
secured. Another cartload was obtained, and after a night 
of effort the workmen shut the doors of the furnace and 
went home in despair. One of them left his coat, and in a 
half hour when he returned for it he found the whole mass 
of coal red hot. Four parcels of iron were heated and 
rolled, and the question of the utility of anthracite in manu- 
factures was settled forever. 



282 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

It occurred to the vigorous mind of Josiah White that a 
great source of wealth was lying in the coal fields back of 
Mauch Chunk. The Lehigh Eiver was near by, but its 
rocky bed and rapid fall and low water in the summer 
seemed to preclude the x^ossibility of using it to transport 
the mineral to market. He was, however, a man of finan- 
cial and mechanical ability and resources, and he concluded 
to attack the mining and transportation problem. The 
Lehigh Coal Company and the Lehigh N'avigation Company, 
afterwards combined into one, were formed, a lease for 
twenty years of the Summit Hill coal tract was obtained, a 
road of uniform grade was made from the mines to Mauch 
Chunk, and the more serious problem of improving the 
river was undertaken. 

In 1818 the two j)artners personally surveyed the river for 
eighty-four miles above Easton. Under the direction of 
Josiah White, workmen were maintained in the wilder- 
ness, narrowing the channel of the river in the rapids, build- 
ing dams and sluice-ways where it was necessary to accu- 
nuilate water, leaving the bottom in many stretches, and 
making great reservoirs to use in dry times. They finally 
secured a means of conveyance for all the coal the people 
would take. 

The sui)X)ly was abundant. All the miners had to do was 
to throw off about twelve feet of earth and the coal was 
exposed. The carts were driven up to it, and the workmen 
could load them with little labor. 

The greatest difficulty was found at the other end of the 
line. The Philadelphians were slow to use the coal. Grates 
had to be made, and householders and manufacturers con- 
vinced that the supplj^ would be continuous. It was diffi- 
cult to dispose of three hundred and sixty-five tons in 1820. 
Special stoves were kept in i)ublic places continually burn- 
ing. Firemen were instructed in the fiictories, and the sale 
rapidly increased to the vast profit of the enterprising- 
pioneers and the great advantage of the public. 

In 1825 the Schuylkill coal trade was also opened to the 
city by a system of dams across the river, making slack- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 283 

water navigation for a distance of one hundred and ten 
miles. Three years later the two anthracite regions sup- 
plied the city with nearly eighty thousand tons of coal. 

The decade beginning 1820 was devoted to canal con- 
struction. The connection between the Schuylkill and Sus- 
quehanna was completed, and boats passed from the west 
branch of the latter stream to Philadelj)hia. The Chesa- 
peake and Delaware Canal was comj)leted in 1829, and the 
Delaware and Raritan Canal a little later, thus making in- 
land water communication from ]N^ew York to Baltimore. 
The rivers were used in the spring freshets to bring down 
lumber from the vast forests of the mountains. The lumber 
and the grain not only found a market in Philadelphia, but 
supplied the cargoes of some two thousand vessels which 
yearly sailed from the port. Ship-building was thus stimu- 
lated, and a score or more of vessels were annually launched 
from the Delaware yards. Though Pennsylvania was i)er- 
meated by a system of canals, and thus was able to reduce 
the freights from the West, she was j)ainfully conscious that 
she could not compete with New York, which brought her 
merchandise over the straight and level Erie Canal. Many 
a meeting was held by public-spirited Philadelphians to 
devise plans to draw in the vast trade of the West, and 
maintain the commercial importance of their city. But the 
Alleghany Mountains on one side, and the long and uncer- 
tain channel of the Delaware River on the other, were 
against them, and the northern city rapidly pushed to 
the front. It became evident that the State must attack 
the problem, and that internal improvements and a tariff 
for industrial protection must be its great engines for de- 
velopment. 

We have seen that protection first took definite form in 
the national tariff act of 1816. The South soon repented 
of its advocacy, and New England was divided, but the 
Middle and Western States never faltered. They had 
suffered most from the panic which culminated in 1819, 
and from which for a few years recovery was slow. They 
were prepared to adopt any panacea. Already it seemed as 



284 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

if the manufacturers of cotton goods had achieved their 
independence, and the cheaper forms were lower than ever 
before. The cry for protection to young industries arose, 
and the general application of the theory to all trades was 
demanded. In 1818 a special act was passed to protect iron 
products, the beginning of a long series. Farmers awoke to 
the fact that a home market was desirable, and became the 
most vigorous champions of the new policy. 

The movement had not in 1820 acquired sufficient headway 
to advance rates, and a bill for that purpose was defeated, 
but in 1824 the Middle and Western States forced through a 
measure against the opposition of Massachusetts and the 
South, increasing the number of industries protected and 
the rates on the old ones. Trade was now buoyant, Penn- 
sylvania was full of work, farmers were receiving good 
prices, and the inevitable argument followed that further 
protection would still further advance prosperity. In 1827 
was held the Harrisburg convention, an important affair in 
its time. About one hundred representatives from differ- 
ent States met, and formed a schedule for the various indus- 
tries. Duties on cotton and woollen goods were to be in- 
creased, agriculture was to be aided, and manufactures of 
hemp, flax, iron, and glass were to receive additional benefits. 
Hitherto the movement had been kept clear of politics. 

Democrats had been prominent in its advocacy, and Penn- 
sylvania was a Democratic State. In 1824 she had thrown 
her electoral vote to Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, 
but the House of Eepresentatives elected John Quincy 
Adams. 

Adams was a moderate protectionist. Jackson did not 
know what he was, but was convinced that he needed Penn- 
sylvania votes if he became President, and when he was 
a candidate again in 1828, his party in Congress gave pro- 
tection in exchange for political support. Hence the tariff 
for that year was the highest reached hitherto and for a 
long time thereafter. 

Congress did even more than the Harrisburg convention 
had demanded. Pennsylvania alone of the States got about 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 285 

what she wanted. New England was purposely thwarted at 
every turn. The South, which did not want protection at 
all, and intended to oppose the bill at the last, was furious. 
Eesolutions were passed in a number of Southern cities to 
abstain from anything produced instates supporting the 
tariff, and a bitter feeling grew up that they were being 
sacrificed to IS'orthern greed. 

With this trade the protection question disappeared for a 
time from politics, and the efforts of the next decade were 
devoted to removing the incongruities of the political 
measure of 1828. 

Jackson had his reward in receiving the electoral vote of 
Pennsylvania for the term beginning in 1829, and his elec- 
tion by an overwhelming majority of the States. 

Governor Hiester had been a colonel in the revolutionary 
war, a member of the State constitutional conventions of 
1776 and 1790, for five years a member of the House and for 
four a member of the Senate of Pennsylvania, and a Con- 
gressman from 1797 to 1805, and again from 1815 to 1820. 
As the candidate of a mixed party, he had pledged himself 
to disregard factional lines in appointments and to select 
the most capable men. He advised in his first address to 
the Legislature that the powers and i)atronage of the Gov- 
ernor should be reduced and expenses should be curtailed. 
He recommended that some system of general education 
should be inaugurated, and he would have closely connected 
with it religious instruction. His administration was in the 
main creditable, and at its close he declined further partici- 
pation in public life. 

Findlay was now in the United States Senate, and the 
Democrats placed in nomination John Andrew Shulze, of 
Berks County. He was forty-eight years old, had held 
several of&ces under Governor Snyder, and had been for 
three terms a member of the Legislature and for one term of 
Congress. He had received a good classical and theological 
education preparatory to the ministry in the Lutheran 
Church, and his state papers show in their style and ar- 
rangement the effects of this training. He had given no 



286 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

evidence of great capacity for public affairs, but his gen- 
eral character was so good that his enemies could say little 
against him. For him, his friends claimed that he was in 
the prime of life, was well educated and courteous, and a 
firm believer in the rights of the common people, and that 
he spoke both English and German. 

The opposition j^arty selected as its candidate Andrew 
Gregg, who had been Secretary of the Commonwealth under 
Hiester. His supporters hardly dared to call themselves 
Federalists, for that name was now almost an object of con- 
tempt. The name of the party of Washington and Adams, 
of Hamilton and Marshall, and of the best-educated men of 
New England and the seaboard cities was a hindrance rather 
than a help to a candidate. The Democrats used every 
effort to emphasize Gregg's past connection with Federal 
measures. He had voted for Jay's treaty, opposed Gov- 
ernor Snyder and the extension of the suffrage in 1808, op- 
posed the War of 1812, and had been a banker and an 
enemy of the poor man. Duane supported him, and tried 
to show that Democrats might properly do the same. He 
failed of election by twenty-five thousand votes. 

This was practically the end of the Federal party. It 
had formed a constitution and a stable government. The 
names of the best and wisest men of the country, of the 
great body of scholars and merchants and men of affairs, were 
associated with it. But during these early decades of the 
nineteenth century those whom Abraham Lincoln called the 
^' plain X)eople" were establishing their place in government. 
Theoretically, they were not capable to manage State affairs, 
but an instinct for libertj^ led them, through many follies 
and errors, towards the goal of American hopes, — "a gov- 
ernment of the people, for the people, and by the people." 
Under Jefferson and Jackson they trampled down the pride 
of property and learning, and established the dignity 
and consequence and inherent rights of the individual 
man. 

1^0 Federal party existed in Pennsylvania after this 
election. Other parties grew from its ruins. The new 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 287 

issues were, however, slow in forming, and when Shulze 
was elected for a second term less than two thousand five 
hundred votes were cast against him, and only half of these 
were willing to admit their Federalism by voting for John 
Sergeant. 

The decade following 1820 began with great cries for 
economy. Salaries from the governor's down were greatly 
reduced. The policy of spending money for internal im- 
provements was questioned. It was one of the heaviest 
accusations against Gregg that he had advised borrowing 
one million dollars under Hiester. But as times improved 
there came a wave of extravagance. Up to 1823 only two 
million five hundred thousand dollars had been appropri- 
ated for canals, roads, and bridges. Under Shulze, though 
he liad been elected on a retrenchment platform, six mill- 
lion dollars were borrowed by the State, and the governor 
to consent. The Erie Canal was robbing Pennsylvania 
of her transportation, and New York was distancing Phila- 
delphia. This, perhaps, could hardly be remedied, but the 
things that remained might be strengthened, and the vast 
resources of coal and iron might be developed and brought 
to market. State encouragement of internal improvements 
and federal tariffs were the means relied upon to secure the 
prosperity of Pennsylvania. 

It was in the second term of Governor Shulze' s adminis- 
tration that these matters come to a head. In his second 
inaugural address he gave an enthusiastic account of the 
resources of the State, of the peace and plenty which the whole 
country was enjoying. He si)oke of the re-establishment of 
the State credit and of the economy practised in the gov- 
ernment. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration 
of Independence, and a fitting time to tell of the liberties 
enjoyed by the people and the glowing success of the 
American experiment. The impressive death of both 
Adams and Jefferson on the Fourth of July forced upon 
every one solemn thoughts of the changes of the half cen- 
tury. In the midst of abounding prosperity, with radical 
Democracy triumphant, with every American proud of his 



288 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

country as perhaps never before, the well-rounded periods 
of the address of Shulze, fresh from a practically unanimous 
election, fell upon the ears of the people with peculiar ap- 
propriateness. 

He had claimed that more money had been spent on in- 
ternal improvements in Pennsylvania than on any other 
section of equal size in the country. As the State could 
borrow at four and a half and five per cent., the Legislature 
decided that still greater liberality would add to the pros- 
perity. The millions that they voted unquestionably stimu- 
lated industry and developed the country, but they injured 
credit. People began to ask whether there was any limit ] 
to the willingness of the people to load down the State with 
debt, and whether the stimulation would not need to be 
continuous to satisfy the masses now in supreme control, 
who reaped the fruits and paid but little of the taxes. 
Moreover, the commissioners had over-spent their appro- 
priations, and temporary loans were made. In the face of 
these questionings and makeshifts the credit of the State 
visibly declined, and difi&culty was found in making new 
loans on good terms. 

A great improvement, however, resulted. Politics was 
predominant in the management, and not all the money 
was wisely expended. Poor work was done, and much of 
it had to be done over, but the conception was a great one, J 
and vast benefits resulted. The idea was to make a canal i 
along the Alleghany and Conemaugh Rivers from Pittsburg 
to Johnstown, a distance of one hundred and four miles. 
Here the boats were to be unloaded or carried bodily over 
the Alleghany Mountains on a railroad up and down a 
series of inclined planes with levels between. Another 
canal would then carry them down the Juniata and Sus- 
quehanna to Columbia, whence a railroad would bear their 
freight across the fertile lands of Lancaster and Chester 
Counties to Philadelphia. Another canal was to connect 
Pittsburg with Lake Erie ; both branches of the Susque- 
hanna were to be utilized in the same way, and another 
would bring the coal and lumber of the Lehigh country 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 289 

from Easton to tide-water at Bristol. Boats were already 
passing from the Susquehanna to the Schuylkill. 

By the end of 1830 the canal from Pittsburg to Johnstown 
was completed. The Portage Eailroad was begun the fol- 
lowing year. There were five planes on each slope, with an 
aggregate elevation of about two thousand feet. At the 
head of each slope was a stationary engine, which drew up 
or let down cars by an endless wire rope. The railroad was 
open for public travel in 1835 as a State enterprise, each 
customer being permitted at first to supply his own motive 
power. 

The water communication from the Alleghanies to Colum- 
bia was also nearly completed in 1830, and the railroad to 
Philadelphia, operated by horses, was also in partial use. 

If, therefore, the State debt was mounting up, and con- 
tractors and politicians were enriching themselves, a great 
public improvement, a system of canals, aggregating about 
four hundred and thirty miles in length, was about com- 
pleted by the close of Governor Shulze's administration. 
Besides these, three hundred miles of canals were owned by 
corporations. Six and a half million dollars had been ex- 
pended by the State and three more were necessary for 
completion, but the Western trade was partly secured ; more 
important still, the State was developed, and coal came 
from Mauch Chunk to Philadelphia by water (first in 1839) 
and sold for six dollars and fifty cents per ton, to the mani- 
fest advantage of the manufacturers of the great city. 

Thus Pennsylvania entered upon her career of industrial 
development. Except a few importers in Philadelphia, all 
her citizens were practically unanimous for protection. 
Again and again did her Legislature pledge the State to its 
support. Under its fostering care manufactures sprung up, 
great in variety and value. Coal and iron she had in 
abundance, means of transportation by the liberality of the 
State were no longer lacking, foreign competition was cut 
off by restrictive duties. She needed the railroad system 
to complete the perfect machinery of trade; she needed a 
system of general education to insure the intelligence of all 

19 



290 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

of her citizens. The dawn of both was quite visible, and 
their brighter day was rapidly to advance. 

They were not, however, questions on which parties would I 
divide. A subject involving more trenchant partisanship 
now came into the political world,— a subject the signifi- 
cance of which the earlier statesmen never imagined, and 
the later have almost forgotten. It was the product of the 
intense patriotism of the times and the boldness which led 
men to attack whatever seemed a moral evil threatening 
the State. :N'o where was the battle more strenuously fought 
than in Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 
1829-1837. 

Antimasonry — Wolf and Ritner— The National Bank and Nicholas 
Biddle — Andrew Jackson and Pennsylvania — Governor Wolf, Thad- 
deus Stevens, and Public Schools. 

The antimasonic movement owes its origin to William 
Morgan, a mechanic of Batavia, New York, who announced 
in 1826 his intention to publish a book narrating the secrets 
of freemasonry. His fellow-Masons had him arrested and 
his house searched, without success, for the manuscript. 
They burned the printing-house where the book was sup- 
posed to be in process of manufacture, and finally seized the 
prisoner and abducted him. What happened to him aftei' 
this was not at the time certainly known, but it was be- 
lieved he liad been murdered. In the local excitement 
which followed, while numerous arraignments were made, 
and public opinion unmistakably pointed out the abductors, 
difficulties seemed continually to rise up before the prose- 
cution, and but few convictions followed. There grew up a 
belief that judges, juries, and witnesses, if Masons them- 
selves, would shield a fellow from just i)unishment, and that 
the abduction and murder of Morgan were parts of a de- 
liberately-planned plot, which declared the policy of the 
whole Masonic body towards any one who revealed the 
secrets of the order. 

Interest in the matter spread over the country. The 
methods and objects of secret societies, of which the Masonic 
order was the prominent representative, underwent close 
scrutiny. Information as to oaths taken and the internal 
machinery were widely spread, and among many people the 
belief prevailed that these were inimical to sound judicial 
procedure and democratic government. They were investi- 
gated by committees of legislatures. Many lodges gave up 

291 



292 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

their charters, aud their merabers felt at least j^artially ab- 
solved from their oaths. The difficulty of securing full and 
official information added to the suspicion of unseen dan- 
gers. Men did not know which of the political efforts of 
the day were due to a secret oath-bound organization, or 
to what efforts inconsistent with liberty the occult i)Owers 
of this organization might be turned. The primary alle- 
giance to the order and the danger of an imperial power 
within the State were much dwelt upon. The oaths re- 
quiring information of danger and assistance in distress 
were said to apply to criminals, and the belief prevailed 
that a Mason could hardly be convicted in court. Contrary 
asseverations were held to be a part of a Jesuitical system, 
which permitted falsehood in the interests of the order. The 
silence of the press was declared to be due to Masonic editors, 
and the Antimasons proceeded to establish a press of their 
own. Sanguinary penalties more to be feared than State pun- 
ishments were asserted to be a part of the secret proceedings, 
and to crown all, the alleged deistical tendencies of certain 
formulae were destructive to Christianity. 

An intense and wide-spread feeling, fanned by such state- 
ments and vouched for by men of the highest character and 
attainments, soon took a political form, especially in the 
States of Vermont, Massachusetts. New York, and Penn- 
sylvania. In Pennsylvania it first seriously asserted itself 
in the gubernatorial election of 1829. 

The Democrats had placed in nomination, Greorge Wolf, 
of Northampton County. He had been a member of the 
State Legislature, had served two terms in Congress, and 
was now fifty -two years old, and, like Snyder, Hiester, 
and Schulze, was the son of a German immigrant. The 
importance of the German voters is indicated by the line 
of German governors stretching, with the exception of one 
term, from 1808 to 1838. Through many of these years the 
candidates of both parties were of this parentage. 

The general impression was that Wolf would be practi- 
cally unopposed. Against him there was known to be a 
heterogeneous opposition, which was to vote for Joseph 




GOV. GEORGE WOLF. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 293 

Ritner. But within a day or two of election the Philadel- 
phia Gazette^ which had concerned itself very little about 
the nomination, said, '' Fortunately for the people there is 
but one ticket for governor, and it does not appear that 
there are any circumstances which could lead to an appre- 
hension of danger to our institutions by the unanimous 
choice of Mr. Wolf. He is represented as an honest man, 
not pledged to any faction." So far as Philadelphia was 
concerned, there was practically one ticket only, for Wolf 
polled eleven thousand one hundred and two, and Ritner 
five hundred and fifty-six votes. But when returns from 
other counties began to come in, the citizens were surprised 
to find a vast vote, in many cases a majority vote, cast for 
Ritner, and then it dawned upon them that an Anti- 
masonic party had come into existence. 

Wolf, however, came safely through with a majority of 
sixteen thousand, but the new party, not at all discouraged, 
kept up its agitation. 

The new governor could continue to congratulate the 
State on its peace, liberty, and prosperity. Its vote was 
held to be necessary to carry Presidential elections, and it 
was much coquetted with by all parties. In the matter of 
tariffs it usually gained what it wanted, and it was always 
definite in demanding ample protection for its industries. 
These were flourishing under the high duties of the year 
before and the money voted for canals. Warned by a 
recent failure to secure a loan. Wolf threw out the cau- 
tionary advice that these improvements should not be 
forced so rapidly as to impair credit, but announced him- 
self as favorable to the further development of the vast 
hidden resources of the State. He advised strongly, in line 
with preceding governors, that something definite be done 
to create an effective system of public schools. 

During the following eight years the main national issues 
which excited Pennsylvanians were antimasonry and 
Andrew Jackson, modified by the questions of the tariff 
and the IN'ational Bank. In State affairs the matters of 
public interest were internal improvements and a public 



294 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

school system. These were inextricably complicated with 
each other. 

Antimasonry was the first one of the great moral ques- 
tions upon which a national party was based. The agita- 
tion reached its greatest development in 1832. In this year 
also Andrew Jackson came up for his second election, and 
Governor Wolf s first term ended. 

The Antimasons placed in nomination for President and 
Vice-President William Wirt, of Maryland, and Amos 
Ellmaker, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Their vote was not 
large, and carried only one State, Vermont, though it 
probably disturbed the balance of power elsewhere. The 
Democrats selected Andrew Jackson for re-election, and 
associated with him Martin Van Buren, of New York. The 
latter gentleman was unpopular in Pennsylvania, and her 
delegates voted for William Wilkins, a Pittsburg judge, for 
Vice-President. The National Eepublicans, as the opposi- 
tion party now called itself, gave their votes to Henry Clay, 
of Kentucky, and John Sergeant, of Philadelphia. Thus 
three Pennsylvanians were candidates for the Vice-Presi- 
dency, a fact which shows the imi)ortance of the Keystone 
vote and the desirability of catering to local pride in order 
to secure it. ^^As goes Pennsylvania so goes the Union" 
was beginning to be a proverb of general acceptance. She 
has always voted for the winning candidate, except in the 
cases of John Quincy Adams and Grover Cleveland. 

The National Bank, located in Philadelphia, chartered for 
twenty years in 1816, through the exertions of Alexander 
J. Dallas, had performed its useful mission. Could it have 
kept itself out of the political controversy of the day all 
would have been well. There was, however, a prejudice 
against all banks, and especially against a bank which per- 
formed some of the functions and reaped some of the profits 
of government. President Jackson had on two occasions 
attacked it bitterly, and it sought friends among his op- 
ponents. In 1831 there seemed in the ofBicial papers of 
the President some signs of relenting, and adverse politi- 
cians claimed that Jackson wished to lull the people into 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 295 

quiet till he should have secured his re-election. This they 
were determined not to permit. They judged that the bank 
had made so many friends and proven itself so useful that 
they could safely use it as a club with which to beat the 
President. His own Secretary of the Treasury spoke of it 
as a necessary part of the government^ and many Democrats 
were known to favor its continuance. If, therefore, the 
subject were pressed to an issue, the President must either 
surrender or be overwhelmingly beaten. They did not 
fully appreciate the resources upon which their great an- 
tagonist could draw. 

Henry Clay led the attack. He had been nominated for 
the Presidency by the I^ational Eepublicans, and the object 
was to secure the electoral vote of Pennsylvania. State 
pride and financial advantage were supposed to make sup- 
port of the Philadelphia bank a winning card in the politi- 
cal game. Though still more than four years in advance of 
the time when the charter would expire, a bill for rechar- 
tering was introduced into Congress early in 1832. The 
friends of Jackson would have been glad to postpone the 
struggle till after the election, but Clay would not have it, 
and in this pugnacious attitude he was encouraged by the 
president of the bank, IsTicholas Biddle. 

That accomplished gentleman was now forty-five years of 
age. Graduate of Princeton at eighteen, secretary of the 
legation in Paris and later in London, editor of the Fort 
Folio, State Assemblyman and Senator, he had brought to 
the management of the affairs of the bank, when in 1819 he 
was appointed a director, eloquence, literary merit of high 
order, political skill, and knowledge of men, besides a pro- 
found study of financial problems. In 1823 he became 
president, and the finances of the country seemed to be at 
his feet. The stockholders were widely scattered, and he 
was given almost dictatorial j)owers. But the weaknesses of 
the bank, not necessarily serious, had to be concealed. Con- 
gressmen and editors had to be conciliated, and the political 
machinery of the times worked to its fullest capacity ; and 
i^icholas Biddle, leaving the beaten ways of finance, became 



296 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

lost in a maze of politics and speculation. At the time 
under consideration, however, he was widely respected, and 
it was not at all certain which was the more powerful, 
President Biddle or President Jackson. 

The bill to recharter passed both houses and was promptly 
vetoed. Largely on this issue the Presidential election in 
Pennsylvania turned, and Jackson's personal popularity 
carried him triumphantly through by a majority of thirty- 
four thousand votes. The large number of depositors, the 
credit of the bank, its vast importance to the currency and 
reputation of the nation, jiride in a great local institution 
did not avail against the hero of New Orleans, the ideal 
Democrat, the fearless assailant of pretension and aristocracy, 
and, it must also be added, the unscrupulous user of the 
spoils of of&ce. 

The fate of the bank was sealed, but it was not even 
allowed to die quietly. To reward friends was no more a 
Jacksonian measure than to punish enemies. The bank had 
opened the attack when it thought the President was weak, 
and now he felt no pity. 

In the message to Congress he advised selling the govern- 
ment stock, seven millions of dollars, and strongly intimated 
a belief in the financial unsoundness of the bank. Congress 
was not compliant, but the poison began to spread among 
the people. If Congress, bought as he believed with the 
money of the bank, would not act, the President would not 
hesitate, and he i^repared for a stroke which his powers per- 
mitted. The government had nearly ten millions of dollars 
in the vaults of the bank, and this gave it the stability and 
credit on which its business was based. He decreed that no 
more should be deposited, and that in the course of business 
the public funds should be withdrawn. So fatal seemed the 
proposal to public security and business stability that his 
best advisers hesitated. His Secretary of the Treasury, 
William J. Duane, a son of the Philadelphia editor, refused 
to be his agent in the ruinous scheme. But Jackson's iron 
will would not bend, and he found a successor in Roger B. 
Taney. The money market became immediately feverish, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 297 

the symptoms developed into the panic of 1837, the most 
severe of our national financial crises. 

There was no necessity for this withdrawal. The bank 
was the safest in the country, in spite of the dangers into 
which it had been drawn by speculations and political 
alliances. It seemed to weather the storm, a few deposits 
were withdrawn, its circulation was curtailed, but it carried 
on its operations successfully, though on a reduced scale, 
till the close of its charter in 1836. 

The State of Pennsylvania rechartered it, and still under 
the presidency of Nicholas Biddle it continued to transact 
business. That brilliant financier was partly responsible 
for its decline, but he retained the confidence of the busi- 
ness ]3ublic. The panic of 1837, with its great shrinkage in 
values, struck it hard. Many other banks went down, but 
it staggered along for a few years longer. 

It was the amazing personal popularity of Jackson, shown 
not only in Pennsylvania but over the Union, rather than ad- 
vocacy of special measures which carried him through in 1832. 
In the canvass for governor. Wolf made common cause with 
the President. The Eepublicans and the Antimasons, now 
stronger than ever, formed a close union under Ritner, him- 
self a Democratic Antimason. It was a close and bitter 
contest. Wolf had made a creditable record. His objectors 
could only point to too great zeal for reform, especially in 
educational matters. Eitner, too, was a strong candidate. 
His father was an Alsatian immigrant. He was an oppo- 
nent not only of Freemasonry, but also of slavery and in- 
temperance, and a friend of education. He had been a long 
time in the Legislature, and was favorably known through- 
out the State. But his time had not yet come, and he was 
defeated by the narrow majority of about three thousand 
votes. Three years later, on account of a division among 
his opponents, he was elected. 

Governor Wolf had been an ardent advocate of a system 
of free schools, and the question figured to some extent in the 
canvass. This was a new element in Pennsylvania politics, 
though as a subject of legislation it had never been absent. 



298 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVAMA. 

The constitution of 1790 directed that ''The Legislature | 
shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for 
the establishment of schools throughout the State in such 
manner that the poor may be taught gratis. 

"The arts and sciences shall be promoted in one or more 
seminaries of learning.'' 

For a number of years the time did not seem convenient 
in the eyes of the Legislature to do anything really effective 
towards the establishment of a common school system. The 
only attempts made were to pay the expenses of the poor in 
existing schools belonging to the religious denominations. 
The second clause was more vigorously acted upon, and the 
Legislature prior to 1830 appropriated about a quarter of a 
million dollars to colleges and nearly as much to academies. 
Some of these grants were accompanied by a condition that 
a certain number of children should be taught free. 

The University of Pennsylvania received, after the Eevo- 
lution, confiscated estates aggregating twenty- five thousand 
pounds. Dickinson College, at Carlisle, got five hundred 
pounds and ten thousand acres of land. In 1795 five thou- 
sand dollars more were given, on condition that students 
not exceeding ten in number should be educated free in 
reading, writing, and arithmetic. In succeeding years 
amounts aggregating forty-seven thousand dollars were ap- 
propriated. Franklin College at Lancaster, Jefferson Col- 
lege at Canonsburg, Washington College at Washington, 
Alleghany College at Meadville, the AYestern University at 
Pittsburg, Lafayette College at Easton, Madison College at 
Uniontown, Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, and Mar- 
shall College in Franklin County were all subsidized, gener- 
ally with the condition attached that a certain number of 
young men should be prepared as teachers. 

The experiment of providing teachers in this way did not 
prove successful, and the State never felt that she received 
the equivalent of her money. ISior in the main were the 
colleges prosperous. Jefferson and Lafayette did good 
work, but the life of the rest of them was a harassing 
struggle. Dickinson College closed its doors in 1832, a 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 299 

wrecked institution under State control. When it opened 
a year later under Methodist management it started on a 
more flourishing career. 

Even less successful was the effort to build up academies. 
The success of the Friends' Public School of Philadelphia, 
which gradually spread its branches over the city, encour- 
aged the State to think that an extension of this model 
would solve the educational problem. If, as the Friends 
had done, a central school of high grade could be main- 
tained in each community, with a suf&cient number of 
feeders more elementary, and of varying charges from nothing 
upward, the State would be provided with a complete equip- 
ment. It was on the same plan that Franklin framed his 
academy and charity school, which afterwards became the 
University. Hence, laws were enacted making appropria- 
tions to academies in many counties. These academies were 
of all sorts,— sometimes managed by popular vote, some- 
times by the religious bodies, but were always intended to 
be for the whole of the community, and thef acceptance of 
the grant from the State required a certain amount of free 
instruction of the poor. 

This was the provision on which the State depended for 
forty years to satisfy the constitutional requirement of 1790, 
and the results were not reassuring. Academies founded to 
secure State grants did not receive the support from their 
neighborhoods which would maintain them 5 they had no 
schools below them, and had to do all the elementary 
work themselves. In many places the people were ob- 
livious to the advantages of education, and the plan of cre- 
ating a demand by one central institution, radiating light 
and stimulating interest, did not work out good results. It 
was necessary to start at the bottom, not part way up. 
Nevertheless the process continued till about 1840, even 
after the establishment of the public school system. After 
this date there was little State aid granted to academies and 
female seminaries, the experiment being generally adjudged 
a failure. 

Laws passed in 1802, 1804, and 1809 provided for an 



300 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

enrolment of all children whose parents were financially 
unable to educate them. These were permitted to attend 
the most convenient school, and the county treasurers were 
authorized and directed to pay the bills. 

As the income of teachers was often dependent upon the 
number of these enrolled, the school would marvellously 
fill up at the time of the quarterly inspection. The streets 
would be ransacked, faces would be washed, and a great show 
of teaching be manifest, to be followed by a departure to 
the alleys when the officers migrated. 

In 1812 a special act for the city and county of Philadel- 
phia authorized the establishment of public schools, at 
which, according to the words of the constitution ^'the 
poor may be taught gratis.'' There was a stigma attached 
to these schools, which kept the well-to-do awaj^, and made 
them less desirable to the poor. ^Nevertheless, some good 
was accomplished, and the system was extended in 1821 to 
other counties containing the larger cities. 

These schools were prompted by the introduction into 
America of the Lancasterian system of instruction, which 
promised to educate the community at very slight expense. 

Joseph Lancaster was an English Quaker who, in the 
early years of the century, gained a meteoric reputation by 
conducting, without any other teachers than the children 
themselves, a school of one thousand poor boys and girls 
in London. The nobility and even royalty visited him, and 
a society, which has had an honorable connection with Eng- 
lish educational history, was formed to extend the system, 
which it finally abandoned. He himself was unpractical, 
quarrelled with his supporters, and came to America. 

The Lancasterian system was introduced into Philadel- 
phia about 1807, and in 1818 the founder himself assumed 
charge. One master was enough for a school of any size, 
provided it could be accommodated in a single room 
with curtain partitions. The best of the most advanced 
children acted as monitors, and taught the class below. 
This in turn supplied the teachers for the next class, and so 
on down the list. On a high platform behind drawn cur- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 801 

tains, which were easily parted, the teacher supervised the 
whole work. Here, as in all other schools, only the poor 
were taught without payment. 

The Philadelphia-Lancasterian schools, with defects in- 
separably connected with the system, were nevertheless 
temporarily most helpful. Thousands of children received 
a start in them, and the idea of training teachers, which idea 
the Lancasterians always taught, led to normal schools. 
Of course the monitors were very crude, and nothing saved 
the schools from contempt but the wisdom and skill of the 
one teacher at the head. He must be selected and prepared 
most carefully, and such a man under any conditions would 
have most potent influences. It required twenty years of 
trial to convince the Philadelphians that a better system 
must be devised. 

Thus it was that in 1831 Pennsylvania alone of the Northern 
States had no comprehensive school system. Philadelphia 
was in a way provided. The Quaker counties of the south- 
east were fairly well studded with little primary schools, 
which taught all the children of Friends, and in some dis- 
tricts the most of the others. Academies in three-fourths 
of the counties sui)plied the wants of a few. In some com- 
munities a few x^ublic-spirited men would make the most of 
their circumstances and secure good schools. The northern 
tier of counties, settled by New Englanders who brought 
with them educational traditions, had many good schools. 
But the central and western parts of the State showed great 
gaps where there were no facilities, and where people were 
contentedly growing up in ignorance. One estimate places 
the number in the State at this date unable to read and 
write at three hundred and seventy thousand. 

It was always claimed that the wording of the constitu- 
tion of 1790 giving authority to provide education for "the 
poor" was a hinderance to the cause. It accentuated dis- 
tinctions of riches and poverty and tended to produce per- 
manent classes. It was, therefore, inconsistent with the 
extreme democracy of the times. It seemed unreasonable 
to many people to levy taxes for the schooling of those 



302 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

amply able to pay their own bills. It looked like a blow at 
self-reliance and parental responsibility. Many a philan- 
thropic individual, willing to give of his substance to the 
poor, was utterly opposed to extending further private or 
public beneficence. Besides, it was claimed that there was 
no constitutional warrant to appropriate any money except 
for the poor, and hence it was necessary to define the term, 
and thus emphasize and, to a certain extent, perpetuate the 
pauper conditions. It was not till the Supreme Court of 
the State decided that the constitution did not prohibit the 
use of State money for others than the poor that any way 
was seen to go forward. On this negative decision is built 
the whole school system of Pennsylvania. 

The constitutional provision and the resulting tangle was, 
therefore, one reason why Pennsylvania lingered behind Xew 
England and New York in its system of schools. Without 
it legislation might have earlier framed a general law. 
With it the friends of such a law placed the greatest stress, 
on the argument that to educate the rich was the only way 
effectively to educate the poor. 

Education had been the burden of every governor's mes- 
sage. For statements of its value and necessity for the indi- 
vidual and State welfare no writers have been more forcible 
than the line of governors of Pennsylvania from Mifiiin to 
Wolf. But the Legislature paid but little heed. When the 
latter gentleman — himself a teacher — came to the chair, 
either his influence was more potent, or the example of 
other States was seen more obviously, and he succeeded 
where others had been unheeded. 

In his annual message of 1831 to the Legislature he says, 
^'I am thoroughly persuaded that there is not a single 
measure of all those which will engage your deliberations 
in the course of the session of such intrinsic importance to 
the general prosperity and happiness of the people of the 
Commonwealth, to the cause of public virtue and private 
morals, ... as a general diffusion of the means of moral 
and intellectual cultivation among all classes of our citizens. '^ 
This was re-enforced by petitions from twenty-four counties 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 303 

for a better system of education, showing that the subject 
would not lack popular support. 

The educational committee of the house summarized the 
existing conditions very clearly, — 

''Several special enactments have been made at different 
periods, limited, however, to the city and county of Phila- 
delphia and to the cities of Lancaster and Pittsburg. So 
far as your committee have become acquainted with their 
effects they believe they have been highly beneficial. Ap- 
propriations have also been made annually in aid of col- 
leges, universities, and academies ; but from their nature 
the benefits of these institutions can only be enjoyed by a 
few. The private schools throughout the State have been 
found inadequate to the wants of the people. In many 
places some inducement is wanted to an uneducated people 
to persuade them to educate their children. In others the 
population is too sparse to support schools ; and where 
schools have been established complaints are made of their 
inefficiency owing to the want of competent teachers and of 
some system by which their better regulation may be 
secured." 

Nothing, however, was done by this Legislature but pro- 
vide a school fund. In the meantime ''The Pennsylvania 
Society for the Promotion of Public Schools,'' which was 
organized in Philadelphia in 1827, and of which Eoberts 
Vaux was the leading man, was agitating the subject by 
speech and pamphlet, and public meetings and memorials 
sprung up over the State. Governor AYolf kept up the 
pressure, and in 1832 the house passed a bill providing a 
system to be maintained by taxation. The Senate defeated 
this, and the matter went over. 

In the fall of 1833 the governor made education the lead- 
ing feature of his message, and the increased strength of 
the free-school men in both houses gave indications that 
action was at hand. The hand that drafted the final form 
was that of Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, a New Englander 
by birth, a man of wealth and culture, whose willingness to 
serve the State arose from a prospect of usefulness in the 



304 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

field of education. The * * Act to establish a general system 
of education by common schools" of 1834 was the result. 
This year is an era in Pennsylvania education. The bill 
passed both houses by an almost unanimous vote and be- 
came a law by the willing signature of the governor. 
y It divided the State into districts and j)rovided for the 
election of directors. Districts might or might not establish 
schools. If they did not, they should receive no part of the 
State approi^riation or the county tax. District school 
taxes to supplement the others should be levied wherev^er 
the sentiment was favorable. Permission was given to in- 
troduce manual labor into the schools. Inspectors were to 
be api)ointed by the courts to ascertain the qualifications of 
teachers, to grant certificates, and investigate the condition 
of the schools. At first seventy-five thousand dollars were 
appropriated yearly for the schools, and shortly after five 
hundred thousand dollars were granted for buildings. The 
system was fairly launched. 

The passage of the law seemed to open rather than con- 
clude the battle. The legislators had voted for the measure, 
either without a full comprehension of its provisions, or 
without a full understanding of the state of public opinion. 
In the fall of 1834 the districts were to vote as to the accept- 
ance of the act and the election of school directors, and the 
contest was one of the most acrimonious in the history of 
Pennsylvania. '^ Schools" or ^^no schools" was the issue, 
and about one-half of the nine hundred and eighty-seven 
districts either voted negatively or declined to have any 
election. In the north and west, where class distinctions 
were loosely drawn and no religious sentiments interfered, 
the law was generally favored. The Lutherans, the German 
Eeformed, the Mennonites, and the Friends generally op- 
posed it, and all the ignorant, the selfish, and the conserva- 1 
tive element of the State took the same position. In the 
German counties the opposition was the most determined 
and successful. These religious bodies had their own 
system of schools, which they were loath to see destroyed, 
and they were firmly convinced that education could not 




THADDEUS STEVENS. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 305 

safely be made wholly secular. The connection between 
the school and the church was to the German and the 
Quaker mind a vital connection, and one sealed by two cen- 
turies of sacrifice. 

Not only did the opponents refuse to accept the law, but 
they resolved to repeal it, and carried the contest into the 
legislative canvass. When that body assembled in Decem- 
ber, 1834, the Senate was found to contain a two-thirds 
majority of anti-school men, and by a vote of twenty- two to 
eleven they sent to the house a repeal. Governor Wolf 
practically said, ''If you dare to repeal, I will veto and 
make the common school question the issue of the next 
election." Thaddeus Stevens, a Vermont boy, now a repre- 
sentative from Adams County, led with vigor and eloquence 
the school forces in the lower house. He was an extreme 
Antimason, but declared he would give up all his favorite 
candidates for governor and support a friend of free schools 
against all other issues. Courage was put into his allies by 
his boldness and resources, and the last great battle was 
gained by a vote of fifty-four to thirty- seven. Eepeal was 
defeated and the law itself strengthened and simplified. In- 
spectors were abolished and their duties given to the elected 
directors, and the methods^f collecting the tax were made 
less onerous and expensive. 

In the succeeding year, while opposition Existed, the 
superintendent, Thomas H. Burrowes, was able to report 
that the number of the districts accepting had grown from 
five hundred and thirty-three to seven hundred and forty- 
two, the schools from seven hundred and sixty-two to three 
thousand three hundred and eighty-four, the teachers from 
eight hundred and eight to three thousand three hundred and 
ninety-four, and the scholars from thirty-two thousand five 
hundred and forty-four to one hundred and fifty thousand 
eight hundred and thirty-eight, figures which indicated 
future security for the system. It needed, however, much 
elaboration by legislative hands, and no man did more 
efiective work in this respect than Dr. George Smith, of 
Delaware County. 

20 



306 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Governor Wolf probably paid the penalty for his hearty 
advocacy of the school system by his defeat in 1835. There 
was a division in the Democratic party, and, though the 
school question was not the ostensible reason, all of its oppo- 
nents were also his. 

The regular Democratic nominating convention was held 
in March. After three days of contention over delegates, 
the convention adjourned to meet in May. After the ad- 
journment the supporters of Wolf held a meeting, expunged 
the previous minutes, admitted the contesting delegates, and 
renominated the governor. The opponents were furious at 
the unexpected move, and meeting at the appointed time, two 
months later, placed in nomination Henry A. Muhlenberg, 
a member of the great Lutheran family of revolutionary 
renown. He was an accomplished scholar and an inheritor 
of educational traditions. But church ties were strong, the 
Lutheran idea of school and church connection, which they 
had brought from Germany, seemed at stake, as well as 
the perpetuity of the German language. While protesting 
against any antagonism to the system, they secured the bulk 
of the anti-school vote against Wolf, who carried the banner 
of ^'Public Education." 

The other causes of difference were of minor importance. 
They related to appointments and offices, and were com- 
plicated by questions of national politics. Three years 
before, Pennsylvania refused to support Martin Yan Buren 
for Vice-President. Now, this gentleman was put forward 
by Jackson as his successor in the Presidency, and Jackson's 
will was law. The Wolf people were supposed to be still 
somewhat lukewarm in their advocacy of Van Buren, as 
well as in their belief in the wisdom of the destruction of 
the National Bank, while Muhlenberg was an outspoken 
Jackson man. Both parties tried to secure the endorsement 
of the President, but that skilful politician contented him- 
self with general approval of Democracy. A word, how- 
ever, was construed by the Wolf partisans as favoring them, 
and they throve on it as against the other faction. The 
quarrel was extremely bitter and malevolent, the opposing 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 307 

cliques being popularly denominated as ''wolves'' and 
''mules." 

While this dissension was growing among the Democrats, 
the other parties were uniting. The Antimasons, of whom 
Thaddeus Stevens was the leader, nominated their standard 
bearer of two previous contests, Joseph Ritner, and the 
Whigs, as the old Federalists and ^N'ational Republicans were 
now beginning to be called, endorsed the nomination. Their 
ranks were recruited by conservative Democrats, who could 
not follow Jackson in his extreme measures. The alliance 
moved on harmoniously to victory. Ritner received ninety- 
four thousand and twenty-three votes ; Wolf, sixty five thou- 
sand eight hundred and four, and Muhlenberg, forty thou- 
sand five hundred and eighty-six. The alliance also 
triumphed in the State House of Representatives, which 
consisted of forty-five Antimasons, twenty -six Whigs, 
seventeen Wolf Democrats, and twelve Muhlenberg Dem- 
ocrats. This ensured the perpetuity of the school system. 

The combination could not, however, carry the State the 
following year. Jackson's wonderful popularity easily tri- 
umphed, with Van Buren and Johnson for President and 
Vice-President. The other party voted for William Henry 
Harrison, Whig, for President, and Francis Granger, Anti- 
Mason, for Vice-President, but the Democrats were now 
united, and Harrison had to wait another four years. Thus, 
' ' having beaten all his enemies and rewarded all his friends, 
Jackson retired from public life to his home in Tennessee." 
For years afterwards, anything Jacksonian was sure of 
tremendous support from the Democrats of Pennsylvania. 

In his final message. Governor Wolf stated that they had 
spent in internal improvement since the movement began 
in 1826, over twenty-two million four hundred and twenty 
thousand dollars, which money had been borrowed at five 
per cent. For this they had six hundred and one and one- 
fourth miles of canals and slack -water navigation in the 
State, and one hundred and eighteen and three-fourths miles 
of railroads. The tolls of the State for the year ending Oc- 
tober 31, 1835, were six hundred and eighty-four thousand 



308 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

dollars, and he felt encouraged to promise over a million 
dollars the succeeding year, so as to relieve the State of any 
necessity to tax itself for the maintenance of the system, a 
hope not realized. 

Governor Eitner, in accepting office, advised a cessation 
of internal improvements till the finances were in better 
condition. He pledged himself to support the school sys- 
tem, which pledge he fulfilled. True to his first love, he 
peremptorily declared that 'Hhe people had willed the 
destruction of all secret societies, and that will cannot be 
disregarded." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

1837-1838. 

The Constitution of 1838 — The Slavery Issue — Pennsylvania for 
Freedom — Anti-Slavery Troubles in Philadelphia — Panic of 1837 — 
Trouble in the State Treasury — The Buckshot War. 

The demand, for a revision of the constitution of 1790 arose 
very soon after its adoption. As time passed on, while strong 
criticism was expressed concerning certain of its provisions, 
the fear of getting something worse was always a check 
upon change. The matter was submitted to the people in 
1825, and they decided by about fifteen thousand majority 
to leave things as they were. Again, in 1835, the question 
of a convention to revise the constitution was voted on at 
the same time as the gubernatorial election. Two hundred 
thousand votes were cast for governor and one hundred and 
sixty thousand on the question of revision. The friends of 
change had a majority of about thirteen thousand, and the 
convention was called. The northern and western counties 
were many of them almost unanimous in its favor. The 
city of Philadelphia and its neighborhood and all the Ger- 
man counties opposed it. Speaking generally, the Ritner 
men opposed and the Democrats voted for the convention. 
The division was carried to the polls, and delegates were 
elected in ^November, 1836, with the result that sixty-six 
Whigs and Antimasons, sixty-six Democrats, and one 
doubtful delegate were elected. The balance of power was 
usually thrown upon the Whig side, and they were thus 
able to organize the convention, with John Sergeant, of 
Philadelphia, as president. The revision was, therefore, 
made more conservative than would otherwise have been 
the case. The convention met at Harrisburg on May 2, 
1837, and continued its sessions there and in Philadelphia 
with some intermissions till February 22, 1838. In October, 

309 



310 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

1838, the people voted on the adoption of the constitution 
thus produced. In the main, the same geographical lines 
existed, with the large cities and the German counties in 
opposition and the north and west in favor. It was adopted 
by the narrow margin of twelve hundred votes in a total 
poll of two hundred and twenty-five thousand. The size of 
the vote indicates the interest attached to the subject. The 
questions at issue have an important historic interest. The 
whole past life of the State might almost be gained from the 
debates of the convention. Every subject of interest, — 
banks, the judicial system, the powers of the governor, the 
duties of the Legislature, purity of elections, the rights of 
conscience, antimasonry, slavery, schools, — was debated in 
some cases with great learning and wisdom. Omitting per- 
sonal abuse and political sparring, the proceedings reflect 
great honor on the State of Pennsj Ivania. 

When the convention met it appeared that there was a 
large party who preferred the old constitution just as it 
was. The ' ^ matchless instrument, ' ' under which the State 
had prospered for forty-seven years, was much eulogized. 
This view did not prevail, however, and the constitution 
was gone over section by section. In the first article, deal- 
ing with the powers of the Legislature, no important 
changes were made. The lower house was still kept be- 
tween the limits of sixty and one hundred, and the upper 
from one-fourth to one-third the lower. The Senators were 
elected for three instead of four-year periods, one-third 
changing annualy. The general distrust of banks was 
shown by an additional section requiring six months' notice 
before incorporation, prohibiting a longer charter than 
twenty years, and giving the power to the Legislature to 
annul the charter whenever it proved injurious to the 
State. 

The terms of new governors and of legislative sessions 
were made to begin on the first Tuesday in January instead 
of the first Tuesday in December. The most important 
change, and the one for which for thirty years there had 
been most clamor, was the limitation of the powers of the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 311 

governor in the matter of appointment. On this point 
arose a great disagreement. Many Democrats desired 
elections by the people and short terms for judges and 
all county offices. A few were extremists, favorable to 
cutting down the salaries of officials to those of working- 
men, and keeping them subservient to the popular will by 
frequent elections. The Whigs, representing the large prop- 
erty interests of the cities, insisted, with great ability, on 
practical independence and high rewards for the judiciary. 
Nearly all were willing to give to the people of the counties 
the election of the county officers. A middle ground was 
found, which gave the governor power to appoint his Sec- 
retary of the Commonwealth, and, with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, all the judges, while all county officers 
were made elective. 

The third article, dealing with the qualifications of elec- 
tors, was a subject of much debate. The conservatives 
claimed that a long period of residence and the payment of 
a tax were necessities to protect the polls. Many stories 
were told of the evasions of the old law, which allowed a 
Jersey man to spend one night in Philadelphia, wash his 
cravat, and vote the next day ; of the votes of a division 
being held back to ascertain the needed majority ; and of 
legitimate voters being disqualified for party purposes. 
But democracy was not to be intimidated by such dangers, 
and the convention cut down the period of residence in the 
State from two years to one, but added the provision that 
the voter must reside in the election district for ten days. 
The old constitution allowed '^ every freeman'' possessing 
the qualifications to vote ; the new added the word ^ ' white, ' ' 
for it came out in the course of the debates that negroes had 
been voting in some counties, and a considerable minority 
desired the custom to continue. 

Article four, relative to impeachment, was unchanged. 
Article five, which had permitted judges to hold office 
during good behavior, was changed to grant definite terms, 
— fifteen years for Supreme Court Judges, for judges learned 
in the law ten years, and for associate judges five years, and 



312 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

made them removable by the governor on application of the 
Legislature. In this clause it was said, ''The governor 
may remove/' and some discussion occurred over the use 
of the auxiliary. The circumstance was recalled of an ap- 
plication to Governor McKean, in which the Legislature 
argued that in such a case ''may" means "must." "May" 
means "won't," the sturdy governor replied. "May" was 
allowed to stand in the new constitution. 

The sixth article prescribed the regulations for the elec- 
tion of county officers, and prohibited any member of Con- 
gress and other national official holding a State office at the 
same time. 

The seventh related to schools. Coming just in the wake 
of the school agitation, there was a great pressure to con- 
form the fundamental law to existing conditions, and to 
omit the clause authorizing "the poor to be taught gratis." 
But the fear that the whole constitution would be over- 
thrown if the ne^^^ ideas were incorporated allowed this 
mediaeval clause to remain. As a matter of fact, it had 
ceased to be dangerous. A section was added to this 
article forbidding corporations to take private property 
without adequate security for payment therefor given in 
advance. 

Articles eight and nine, the former requiring oath or 
affirmation of officers, the latter the bill of rights, were 
unchanged. 

A provision for amending, which the old constitution 
lacked, was added as article ten, and the whole was ready 
to submit to the people. It was in the main a cautious 
revision, but the result showed it to be as much as the 
people would stand. 

The slavery question had not by this time become an 
issue in national partisan politics. Whigs and Democrats 
might be for or against slavery without destroying their 
party standing. In Pennsylvania almost every person was 
more or less strongly opposed to the Southern institution. 
It is questionable whether any State has a more honorable 
record on the subject. From 1780, when she, the first 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 313 

among the States^ passed an act for the gradual abolition 
of slavery within her limits, her representatives had been 
foremost at Washington and at Harrisburg in resisting the 
slave power. The first abolition society ever formed was 
organized in Philadelphia before the war for independence. 
It lasted as long as there was any need for it. The Friends, 
dropping politics with the Eevolution, gave their energies 
to moral questions, and they found slavery standing right 
athwart the march of reform. To a man they were against 
it, though their hesitation about extreme measures prevented 
many from being radical abolitionists. They could and did 
enter their formal protest on all possible occasions. They 
addressed the Congress of the confederation in 1783. They 
were heard in the convention that framed the Constitution 
of the United States. Scarcely had the new Congress got 
to work, when, on February 11, 1790, they memorialized it, 
declaring that the slave-trade contravened the Golden Rule, 
and asked whatever relief was possible. The next day the 
Pennsylvania Abolition Society, with Franklin as presi- 
dent, reinforced the discussion by its petition for the grad- 
ual suppression of slavery. The petitioners were vigorously 
attacked by the Southern Congressmen, and as vigorously 
defended by the Northern. Pennsylvania representatives 
were prominent in defence. Mr. Scott said, ' ^ I look upon 
the slave-trade to be one of the most abominable things on 
the earth.'' Mr. Hartley drew up the report of the commit- 
tee, which stated that, on account of constitutional restric- 
tions, the Congress could not prohibit the trade prior to 
1808, nor could it effect the emancipation of slaves within 
the States. It could, however, lay a tax of ten dollars on 
each slave imported, it could prohibit trade to foreign 
countries, it could regulate the interstate traffic in the 
interests of humanity, and the memorialists were assured 
that it would promote their objects ''on the principles of 
justice, humanity, and good policy." The Quakers bore 
the brunt of the slave-holding defamation, but they did not 
greatly care. 
The Pennsylvanians could not prevent the passage of the 



314 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, but her representatives protested 
vigorously against the kidnapping of free negroes carried 
on under pretence of the return of runaway slaves. Mr. 
Smilie, a strong Democrat, declared, when a petition of 
colored people came before Congress, that they were "a 
part of the human species, equally the objects of attention, 
and they had a claim to be heard." John Sergeant, a Fed- 
eralist, made a hopeless attempt to have the judges of the 
State where the negro was seized to pass on his freedom 
before his remission to the South. Senator Eoberts was a 
strong supi3orter of all antislavery measures. Albert Gal- 
latin in 1797 presented a Quaker petition setting forth that 
slaves freed by their coreligionists of Xorth Carolina had 
been reduced to slavery by laws made after their manumis- 
sion, and another vigorous and abusive discussion arose. 
It was a Pennsylvanian, Mr. Bard, that introduced in 1804 
a resolution taxing every slave imported ten dollars, the 
limit the constitution permitted. 

In 1817 the Philadelphia Friends again appeared with a 
memorial for suppressing the fitting out of vessels for foreign 
trade, and for prohibiting the interstate traffic. When in 
1819 the struggle came over the extension of slavery into 
the great territory west of the Mississi^Dpi, generally known 
as Missouri, the Pennsylvania Senators, Roberts and Lowry, 
took strong and positive grounds for freedom. In speaking 
of the choice between a dissolution of the Union and such 
an extension, the latter gentleman said, ^'I will choose the 
former, though the choice is one that fills my mind with 
horror." No more manly words were spoken on this ques- 
tion than those of John Sergeant. By a unanimous vote 
of the Pennsylvania Legislature the position taken by her 
I'eiDresentatives was sustained, and her sentiment loudly 
expressed that slavery should be forever prohibited in 
Missouri. 

In 1831 a convention of colored men met in Philadelphia. 
They adopted strong resolutions against colonization, then 
one of the strongly pressed movements of the times. They 
declared that it would only perpetuate slavery, and that to 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 315 

rid the country of free negroes was a move in the interest of 
Southern slave- masters. Two years later, at the call of 
Evan Lewis, a Friend, the first national antislavery conven- 
tion was held in the same city. Beriah Green, of New 
York, was president, and Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier 
were secretaries. It was no easy thing to be an abolitionist 
in those days. The South threatened all possible penalties, 
even murder, and the vast majority of Northern people con- 
sidered an antislavery agitator to be a fanatic. But men 
like Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison had 
embarked their all in the cause and never hesitated at 
danger. The convention gave no uncertain sound. It was 
for the total suppression of slavery without compensation to 
owners or regard for consequences. The constitution and 
the laws were in league with the unholy practice. ' ' This 
relation to slavery is criminal and full of danger 5 it must be 
broken up." The members went forth to form societies, to 
distribute literature, to make speeches, to arouse and edu- 
cate the people, to suffer in person and fortunes. 

The activity of the agitators was met by increased opposi- 
tion from the South and pro-slavery and peace-loving people 
of the North. The Southern leaders demanded that the 
mails be closed to antislavery literature, that meetings be 
broken up, and that laws be enacted to stop the disturbance, 
which they claimed would produce a servile insurrection. 
The demand was responded to by Northern action, and the 
cry went forth that even free speech and discussion were in 
danger. The Vermont Legislature sent a memorial to the 
other States calling their attention to the danger of the cur- 
tailment of this fundamental privilege, but the response 
was not hearty. In the seeming demoralization of the 
times nothing gave the freedom-loving men of the North 
more encouragement than the message of Governor Eitner 
in 1836. He spoke of the change of Pennsylvania sentiment 
in response to demands from Washington and the South. 
^^In rapid and startling succession all the objects of State 
pride have been attacked, — internal improvements by na- 
tional means, — distribution of proceeds of public lands 



81f) HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

among the States, — protection of domestic industry, — the 
National Bank, and last, but worst of all, came the base 
bowing of the knee to the dark spirit of slavery." He 
called attention to the action of the Legislature in 1819 re- 
questing Pennsylvania's representation in Congress to vote 
against slavery in Missouri and in the District of Colum- 
bia, and to the resolution of 1827, which declared that ^^ the 
traffic in slaves, now abhorred by all the civilized world, 
ought not in the slightest degree to be tolerated in the State 
of Pennsylvania." ^' While we admit," he continued, 
' ' and scrupulously respect the rights of other States, let us 
not, either by fear or interest, be driven from that spirit of 
independence and veneration for freedom which has ever 
characterized our beloved Commonwealth." 

' ' Above all, let us never yield the right of free discussion 
of any evil that may arise in the land or any part of it." 

These were the words which drew from Whittier the in- 
spiring lines beginning, — 

• ' Thank God for the token, one lip is still free, 
One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee." 

There certainly was a great change among the people since 
1819, when men of all colors met in harmony to discuss and 
reprobate the slave-trade. Political virulence was doing its 
work, and race prejudices by 1830 were greatly excited. 
From that date onward there were frequent riots in the 
streets of Philadelphia. Abolitionists became increasingly 
unpopular. Fights between the lower classes of whites and 
the blacks resulted in fires, maiming, and murder. Negroes' 
houses were burned and the occupants driven to the fields. 
The police were inefficient, and for days rioters ruled the 
city. 

The culmination occurred in 1838 with the burning of 
Pennsylvania Hall. The antislavery men, finding it in- 
creasingly difficult to secure halls for their meetings, raised" 
money, bought a lot on Sixth street between Cherry and 
Eace, and built a hall capable of seating three thousand 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 317 

people. It was to be dedicated to free discussion, but was 
to be used also for general purposes. It was opened by an 
address by David Paul Brown, a famous advocate, who often 
gave his services in the interests of fugitive slaves. The 
next day placards were placed over the city calling on the 
people to break uj) the meetings which were to follow. A 
letter was read from John Quincy Adams, then a venerable 
member of the House of Eei^resentatives, and a poem by 
Whittier, editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman^ just started. 
As other antislavery meetings followed, the crowd began to 
break the windows with stones and to jeer the speakers. 
The mayor was appealed to, and he exj)ressed his willing- 
ness to protect the house if he were given the keys. He 
made a conciliatory speech and departed. The mob then 
attacked the building, built bonfires against it, cut the gas- 
pipes, and in a little time the hall was burned. Whittier 
lost all his books and papers and barely escaped being 
mobbed. Benjamin Lundy's whole stock was destroyed. 
An attempt was made to burn a "shelter for colored 
orphans" and the FuUic Ledger building, but the authori- 
ties saved them. The inefficiency of the police and fire de- 
partments continued to be shown in the next decade, and 
Philadelphia achieved an unenviable reputation for rioting. 
The year 1836 was all over the Union one of great seem- 
ing prosperity, of high prices, and of abundant speculation 
in public lands and stocks. It was the closing year of 
Jackson's administration, and all outward signs indicated 
the vast success of his financial as well as his political 
measures. The ^N'ational Bank was destroyed. It is true it 
had been rechartered by the State under the name of the 
Pennsylvania Bank of the United States, and was still a 
rallying point for the Whigs, and an object of bitter attack 
by the Jacksonian Democrats. But though all men did not 
know it, its political power was gone. The national treasure 
was scattered among a number of State banks, some strong, 
but some utterly rotten, though this rottenness had not yet 
been revealed. The national money was used by them as 
the basis of a system of bank-notes which were issued freely 



318 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

and accepted unhesitatingly as an aid to speculative and 
legitimate enterprises. 

Into this condition of apparent healthfulness, but inherent 
disease, came Jackson's ^'specie circular," requiring all 
public lauds to be paid for in gold. There was also an evi- 
dent purpose to throw suspicion over the notes, in order to 
prepare the way for the favorite Democratic policy, an ex- 
clusive specie circulation. The notes came back to the 
banks for redemption, with a strenuous call for gold with 
which to buy land. With every sign of weakness came in- 
creasing distrust. The country was in debt sixty million 
dollars to Europe for goods brought in during the era of 
high prices, and a stringency there made a sudden demand 
for payment. The general conditions soon became greatly 
strained, and early in 1837 the commercial panic began. 
The banks suspended specie payment. Money commanded 
exorbitant rates, and the whole commercial structure came 
down with a crash. There were bread riots in ]S'ew York. 
The national government found its ^^pet banks" unworthy 
of credit, and lost millions of dollars. By decree of Con- 
gress it had been distributing its surplus cash among the 
States. But its surplus cash had disappeared, and it could 
not even pay its bills. The State treasuries in turn then 
felt the disaster. 

The storm centre was in New York, and in December, 
1837, Governor Eitner could congratulate his State that she 
came off favorably in the general wreck. The next year 
there was an attempt at resumption and an apparent better- 
ment of general conditions. But it was only forced, and 
could not last. Nicholas Biddle resigned his Presidency 
in 1839, and two years later the bank failed, hopelessly 
involved. 

In the mean time the Pennsylvania treasury was show- 
ing symptoms of sickness. A debt of thirty million dollars 
had been built up, over twenty-two million dollars of 
which had gone for internal improvements, which did not 
yield enough to pay the interest. The total revenue of 
the State was a half million dollars short of the expenses, 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 319 

and Governor Eitner's honest soul was vexed at the tempo- 
rary loans which the policy of the Legislature forced upon 
him. He could not veto the separate items of the appro- 
priation bills, and the good and bad were so mingled he was 
forced to permit all to pass together. Private companies 
and sectional jealousies were allowed to dictate terms to the 
State. A flood in the Juniata on June 19, 1838, swept away 
forty miles of canal, and four hundred thousand dollars 
were borrowed, without legislative authority, from the Bank 
of the United States to repair the damage. To complete 
the system, over three millions dollars more were needed, 
and nearly a million of the j)ermanent loan would come due 
in 1839 and 1840. The last message of the governor, in 
December, 1838, was therefore one of misgiving. He was 
one of the best of Pennsylvania's governors, an outspoken 
friend of honesty, freedom, education, and temperance, and 
he could not view the triumph of Jacksonian j)rinciples, 
the overthrow of banks, the suppression of slavery discus- 
sion, the use of public office and public money to reward 
friends and punish enemies, with anything but alarm. His 
party, now the United \Yhig party, made up of old Feder- 
alists, Antimasons, and conservative Democrats, made him 
their standard-bearer for the fourth time in 1838. 

The Democrats, now also united, presented as their candi- 
date David Eittenhouse Porter, of Huntingdon County. He 
was a Pennsylvanian by birth, of Irish ancestry. His father 
was a faithful and efficient officer of the revolutionary army, 
and a friend of Pennsylvania's first astronomer, who was his 
teacher, and for whom he named his son. 

No campaign of Pennsylvania, before or since, has been 
conducted with more virulence. Thaddeus Stevens, fresh 
from an antimasonic investigation of masonry, where all 
Masons refused to testify, injected into it the vigor and 
violence of his own personality. He was assisted by Thomas 
H. Burrowes, Secretary of the Commonwealth, afterwards a 
successful administrator of the public schools, and Theodore 
Fenn, the editor of The Telegraph, the Eitner organ. The 
Democrats had an equally effective organization, with the 



320 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

newspaper support of the Keystone aud the Iron Gray. Lies 
of the most atrocious kind were published about the candi- 
dates, and many of the measures by which both parties sought 
to win the election were greatly reprehensible. The Anti- 
masons and \yhigs dei^ended upon the appropriations to 
canals and railroads, and the laborers employed thereon, the 
new constitution, the i)ublic schools, and the recharter of 
the National Bank. The Democrats had behind them the 
Jacksonian policy in its entirety. The returns showed 
Porter's election by about one hundred and twenty-seven 
thousand votes to one hundred and twenty-two thousand. 
The lower House of Legislature was almost evenly divided, 
the majority being dependent upon which of two contesting 
delegations from Philadelphia should be seated. Without 
these, there were forty-eight Democrats and forty-four Anti- 
masons and Whigs. The Senate had a Whig majority, and 
quickly organized. Then began a struggle which is generally 
known as '^The Buckshot War." 

Each of the sections of the assembly elected its speaker and 
perfected its organization, taking in its own delegation from 
Philadelphia. Sometimes sitting in the same hall at the 
same time and sometimes apart, each body ]3rofessed to be 
the legal Legislature. Harrisburg became the centre of all 
eyes, and a great crowd, composed of violent partisans, 
assembled there. This crowd, however, never did anything 
more serious than hoot and cheer, carry an offending speaker 
from the platform to a chair in the aisle, and force Thad- 
deus Stevens to jump out of the back window of the Senate 
chamber. Public meetings were held, and sympathy seemed 
to be in the main with the Democrats. Governor Eitner 
finally issued a proclamation stating that, inasmuch as a mob 
at the seat of government was overawing the Legislature, 
the civil and military authorities of the government should 
hold themselves in readiness to proceed to the capital and 
aid in the supremacy of law. He also, by means of laborers 
on State works, took possession of the arsenal. This would 
have precipitated a fight, had not two gentlemen in whom 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 321 

the people had confidence pledged their honor that the arms 
should not be used against the citizens. 

The governor then ordered General Eobert Patterson, of 
Philadelphia, to bring to the seat of government a force 
'^sufficient to quell this insurrection". He gathered to- 
gether one hundred men. In the attempt to supply buck- 
shot cartridges for these troops, the bearer was waylaid and 
compelled to surrender them to the Philadelphia populace. 
Many of these have been preserved as mementoes of the 
'* war." 

Two days later the troops reached Harrisburg. The 
General refused to allow them to be used to support either 
party, or for any other purpose than to protect public 
property, and decided himself upon the propriety of any 
orders given him. He was ordered home, and a small 
detachment under Whig officers was brought in from Car- 
lisle. No disturbances, however, occurred, and the presence 
of troops probably did more to damage the governor's party 
than to aid it. 

In the mean time three members of the Whig house aban- 
doned their party and joined the Democratic organization. 
This gave the latter body a clear majority of uncontested 
seats. The Senate was finally brought to recognize it as the 
legal body. The election returns were opened, the new con- 
stitution formally declared adopted, and David E. Porter 
became governor. 

This was the last struggle of the antimasonic party. Its 
members generally becanie Whigs, and afterwards Liberty 
Men and Eepublicans. 



21 



CHAPTER XX. 

1838-1850. 

Ritner's and Porter's Messages — Deficits and Mismanagement — 
Public Works — Riots in Philadelphia — Girard's Will and College — 
State Politics — The Harrison Campaign— Tariff — ^Mexican War — 
Wilmot Proviso — Improvements — Graham's Magazine — Bayard 
Taylor and T. Buchanan Read. 

EiTNER wound up his administration by a message to the 
Legislature, in which he narrated in brief the events of the 
" war," claiming that the introduction of the soldiers had 
saved the government from violence at the hands of the 
mob. He referred to the tests for voting imposed by the 
new constitution, and the great evil of betting on elections, 
which made ' ' all good men doubt the fairness of the re- 
sults." The duties of Superintendent of Instruction were 
now becoming quite onerous, and he recommended that 
the Secretary of the Commonwealth be relieved of them, 
and a special office be created, a recommendation which was 
afterwards adopted. He pointed with satisfaction to the 
growth of the public school system during his incumbency. 
The common schools had increased in number from seven 
hundred and sixty-two to about fi^ve thousand, the acade- 
mies from seventeen to thirty-eight, and of the ten hun- 
dred and twenty-seven school districts eight hundred 
and seventy five had now accepted the provisions of the 
law. What now was needed was a supply of trained 
teachers. In his treatment of the financial question he 
was hardly fair. While it was true that the public debt 
had not grown since 1835, he left conditions such that a 
considerable increase was immediately necessary. His 
statement that the canal and railroad tolls had yielded 
about a million dollars during the last year was true only 
322 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 323 

of the gross receipts. As a matter of fact, the repairs and 
charges for motive power had eaten up all the profits. 

When Porter came into office he found the treasury 
empty and a scale of expenditures which would inevitably 
produce a large yearly deficit. The canals were in such a 
condition that work could not be stopped, or all that had 
been done would be lost. There would apparently be no 
money to pay the interest on the debt due the 1st of Feb- 
ruary, 1839, and ''it would be an everlasting stigma if any 
creditor should have to wait" for his money. The debt 
was now about thirty million dollars, and the apparent de- 
ficit for 1839 was nearly four million dollars. United States 
distributions of public funds could not be expected, and 
bank stocks, of which the State owned several millions, 
would not yield much, if any, dividends. For the debt the 
State could point to a great system of public transportation, 
which, however, was still only partially completed. The 
great need was ready money, and the only recourse was bor- 
rowing. But when the attempt was made no proposals 
came from the State banks. Porter was fui-ious at the 
^ ' combination, " as he deemed it, of the banks against their 
creator, the State, and advised, after the fashion of Jackson, 
to break them down by the immediate sale of the State 
stock. The banks were already on the verge of closing 
their doors, and were restrained by other than political con- 
siderations from extending their loans. On October 10, 
1839, they suspended payments. Governor Porter suc- 
ceeded in procuring about six million five hundred thou- 
sand dollars during the year in Europe and at home, paid 
the debts of the State, and continued the canal work. 

He dealt vigorously and plainly with the situation, which 
was not of his creating. He told the people that they had 
been deceived by the publication of the gross receipts of 
the public works, while the item of expenses was kept in 
the background. He warned them that the disastrous 
financial conditions would still further curtail income ; that 
they were compounding their debt, and had been for years, 
at the rate of a million or more a year ; that, while they 



;^04 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

had a great system of i^ublic improvements, it would bo 
impossible to sell it at cost, or at other than ruinous prices : 
that their resources for borrowing were about exhausted, 
and the fiscal outlook was seriously dark. The improve 
ments must not cease, or much that had been done would be , 
lost, and the two millions a year needed for ordinary ex- 
penses must be procured by taxation. I 

As the Legislature adjourned on April 16, 1840, without 
any especial provision for the debt, he called an extra ses- 
sion, and gave them some plain advice, telling them the 
public works would soon cease to produce revenue if they 
were not attended to, and that the interest on the debt 
would soon be in arrears. The Legislature responded by 
authorizing new loans and le\'^ing taxes on watches, 
pleasure carriages, and other luxuries, which produced 
about six hundred thousand dollars a year. 

Still the debt mounted upward, business was bad, and 
money hard to obtain. In August, 1842, there was nothing 
in the treasury to pay interest on the debt, and certificates 
had to be given instead of cash. This continued for two 
and one-half years, the certificates being funded, thus in- 
creasing the principal of the debt. The bonds were now 
selling at fifty per cent., a loss to the holders of the debt of 
twenty million dollars. 

Unfortunately for the reputation of Pennsylvania, Sidney 
Smith held some of the bonds. In a series of brilliant let- 
ters, written in 1843, he has immortalized the adversity of 
the State. ' ' The fraud is committed in the profound peace 
of Pennsylvania by the richest State in the Union, ... It 
is an act of bad faith which has no parallel and no excuse " 
^' And now, having eased my soul of its indignation and 
sold my stock at forty per cent, discount, I sulkily retire 
from the subject with a fixed intention of lending no more 
money to free and enlightened republics, but of employing 
my money henceforth in buying up Abyssinian bonds." He 
was too severe ; for, though the Legislature was careless of 
the credit of the State, and had to be again and again 
brought back to its duty by the governor, and though cor- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 325 

rupt officials and citizens were becoming rich out of State 
money, yet Pennsylvania ultimately paid every dollar of 
indebtedness, with interest on the delayed interest. Many 
a person who has read the attack and been ignorant of the 
facts has unjustly assumed that the State had repudiated its 
obligations. 

The story, however, is dark enough. Omitting all direct 
corruption, which was not absent, the financiering of the 
State was not brilliant. Its credit, which in Wolffs time 
seemed inexhaustible, enabled abundant loans to be made, 
and new loans paid the interest on the old ones. It was not 
till 1845, w^hen the debt had increased to forty millions, that 
solid footing was reached. By this time, also, the hard 
times in the business world were over. After holding its 
own for a few years, the State treasury showed a balance, 
and a process of rapid reduction would have followed had 
not new improvements been started. The credit of the 
State remained unquestionably good. The banks had aided 
the process of accumulating debt by furnishing facilities for 
borrowing. They had been created out of proportion to the 
needs of business, and two-thirds of them had failed, seri- 
ously damaging the remainder. After the main line of 
canal and railroad was provided for, the fever for exten- 
sions and side lines raged stronger than ever. Six millions 
were borrowed for these, and a new set of improvements 
was begun, all of which were abandoned, and passed into 
the hands of private companies without consideration, while 
the State still continued to pay interest on the money. 
Parts of the older canals were also given away, but still con- 
tractors and land claimants had to be paid, and the 
State sold out its bank and other stocks, which cost over 
four millions of dollars, for one-third this amount. The 
whole movement was partly a result of the reckless spirit 
of the community engendered by excessive issues of bank- 
notes. 

Nor was the Commonwealth any more successful in the 
management than in the construction of public works. 
They became the prey of j)artisan spoilsmen, who were 



326 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

rewarded or punished through their pockets for their polit- 
ical activities. Friends of the party in power received free 
passes, low rates for freight, and prompt transportation ; 
opponents had full charges and irritating delays. Em- 
ployees moved from town to town on election day on gravel 
trains, voting through the livelong day. They were added 
to without regard to the needs of the service and discharged 
when their political usefulness was ended. It is no wonder 
that ultimately the people demanded the sale of the system, 
even though it brought only one-fourth the money expended. 
Of what avail were tolls and income in the face of such gen- 
eral demoralization ! 

Among the expedients for paying debts were what were 
called relief notes. The State could not issue i)aper money, 
but it could create banks and prescribe conditions. The 
banks were authorized to subscribe to a loan of the Com- 
monwealth. Notes were then issued to be redeemed by the 
banks and secured by the pledge of the State. They thus 
became non- interest-bearing certificates of indebtedness. 
They were issued to the extent of two millions of dollars, 
and were paid off at the rate of about two hundred thousand 
dollars a year. They induced a fictitious and temporary 
prosperity, but had to be redeemed before solid ground 
could be reached. 

In 1844 an act was passed submitting to the people the 
sale of the main line of public improvements, and they 
voted in the af&rmative, still leaving it with the Legislature 
to arrange the terms. A year earlier Simon Cameron and 
four associates had offered three millions of dollars for the 
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, but the price was not 
considered high enough. This had cost the State over four 
millions of dollars ; the canal along the Susquehanna and 
Juniata over five millions ; the Portage Railroad nearly 
two, and the western division over three, making a total of 
about fourteen million four hundred thousand dollars, be- 
sides large additions for repairs and interest. 

It was becoming increasingly evident, as the possibili- 
ties of steam railroads increased, that the cumbrous portage 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 327 

system and the slow transportation in canals would not 
secure the Western trade. A through railroad was neces- 
sary, and the State had no heart to undertake it. Engineers 
now pronounced it possible to cross the Alleghanies, and the 
best route was evidently one near the line of the existing 
system. In 1838 the route was surveyed, but it was not 
till 1846 that the project assumed shape. An act was 
passed providing that if a new company should have three 
millions of stock subscribed and one million actually paid 
in by the 25th of February, 1847, together with fifteen 
miles of railroad constructed at each end of the proposed 
line, a charter should be issued, and the law granting the 
right of way to the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad to extend 
itself from Cumberland to Pittsburg should be declared 
void. These conditions were complied with, and the Penn- 
sylvania Eailroad Company was created. It was a con- 
test between Philadelphia and Baltimore for the western 
trade centring in Pittsburg, and Philadelphia won, though 
at the time Pittsburg did not like it. 

John Edgar Thomson, at first as engineer, afterwards as 
president, is to be largely credited with the successful man- 
agement of the road during those early years of formation. 
Work began both at Harrisburg and Pittsburg in July, 
1847 ; in about three years connections were made on both 
sides with the Portage Eailroad, and on December 10, 1852, 
cars were run through from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. 
The city of Philadelphia had subscribed for two million 
five hundred thousand dollars of stock and the county of 
Alleghany for one million more, and the road adopted the 
policy, which was reasonably well adhered to, to build out 
of its stock receipts without borrowing. 

The weakness of local government was strikingly shown 
in the Philadelphia riots of 1843-44. The ^' Native Ameri. 
can" movement, which swept the country during the next 
decade very much as the anti masonic movement had in the 
last, arose out of local conditions in Philadelphia and New 
York. As yet it was but a prejudice against Catholics, 
arising out of their attitude to the school question. Phila- 



328 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

delphia had became proud of her new school system, which 
was the best in the State. 

Kensington, which was not then a part of the city, was 
filled with Irish Catholic weavers. An organization formed 
to insist on the reading of the Protestant Bible in the public 
schools began to hold meetings in this stronghold of Catholi- 
cism in 1844. Their meetings were broken up, and between 
them and the Hibernia Hose Company a miniature battle 
raged. A lad trying to protect the American flag was 
killed. He became in the eyes of the excited Protestants a 
martyr to American institutions. Crowds gathered, the 
houses of Catholics were attacked, and a general riot en- 
sued. The next day a great procession from the city moved 
on Kensington. The Catholics had made preparations to 
resist, and, being in the houses, had the best of it in the 
subsequent firing. The hose company's building was set 
on fire, and the flames spread. The riots continued for sev- 
eral days, the police arrangements being entirely inadequate. 
Catholic churches were attacked and had to be defended by 
the police, and St. Augustine's, on Fourth Street below 
Vine, was burned to the ground. Soldiers were finally 
called out. Governor Porter arrived and issued a proclama- 
tion, when outward quiet was restored. 

But reports that Catholics were fortifying their churches 
and the enlivening efforts of Fourth of July speeches re- 
newed the excitement in South wark, also an Irish Catholic 
section. A church there was forced, and the guns, pow- 
der, and rudely- made pikes found there added fuel to the 
excitement. The militia was again called out and a battle 
ensued in the streets, in which two of the soldiers and a 
dozen of the mob were killed. The result of the riots was a 
reorganization and increase of the police force of the city 
and suburban districts. 

The next year Pittsburg met with great misfortune in a 
fire which burned over one-third of the city, including 
nearly all the best business portion. 

In 1831 Stephen Girard died. He was nearly eighty-two 
years old. He was the richest American of his age or any 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 329 

preceding one, without heirs, and the contents of his will 
were awaited with a popular interest never exceeded. Of 
his eight million dollars all but about two hundred thousand 
dollars were given to public uses. A large gift went to the 
city of New Orleans, the balance to the city of Philadelphia 
for various improvements, including his college. The latter 
bequest, nursed by favoring circumstances and good man- 
agement, amounts to thirty million dollars, making Girard 
College the most richly endowed educational institution in 
America. 

The chairman of the board of trustees was Nicholas 
Biddle when, in 1833, the corner-stone was laid. It was he 
whose influence directed the fine Grecian architecture of 
the principal building, though the architect was Thomas W. 
Walter, who afterwards designed the National Capitol at 
Washington. 

The directions to the trustees were rigid in the extreme. 
If literally obeyed, no such building as now adorns the 
grounds would have been possible, for there was to be no 
'^ needless ornament.'^ He directed that there should be no 
wood in it except for doors, windows, and shutters. He 
prescribed the way the sashes should open ; the height and 
thickness of the surrounding wall ; the number and size of 
the rooms of each story ; and all the small points of con- 
struction in troublesome detail. 

The institution was to be for the feeding, clothing, and 
education of orphans, born (in the order named) in Phila- 
delphia, other parts of Pennsylvania, the city of New York, 
and New Orleans. They were to be taught '^ facts and 
things rather than words or signs,'' and might remain in 
the College till they were from fourteen to eighteen years 
old. ^'No minister of any sect whatever" should be ad- 
mitted within its walls, but ^Hhe purest principles of moral- 
ity" were to be taught, and ^'attachment to our republican 
institutions and to the sacred rights of conscience." 

The institution was not opened till 1848. The estate had 
in the mean time greatly increased, and it has only been by 
lavish improvements that the trustees have succeeded since 
then in expending the rapidly growing income. 



330 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The people approved the straightforward course of Gov- 
ernor Porter, and re-elected him in 1S41 by twenty-three 
thousand majority over his AYhig competitor, John Banks. 
Three years later the Democrats again carried the election 
by the narrow majority of four thousand votes. They had 
nominated first H. A. Muhlenberg, but he died before the 
election, and Francis R. Shunk became governor. He was 
again elected in 1847. He had been Governor Porter's Sec- 
retary of State during his first administration, and in 1842 
had settled in Pittsburg to practise law. He died in 1848, 
and William F. Johnston, the Whig Speaker of the Senate, 
succeeded him by virtue of his of&ce. Writs were issued 
for a new election, and Johnston, carried along by a Whig 
wave which swei)t over the nation, came in by the narrow 
majority of two hundred and ninety-seven over his Demo- 
cratic competitor, Morris Longstreth. 

While still generally true to Democracy in State affairs, 
the vote of Pennsylvania for President in 1840 went to Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison. He was wonderfully popular in the 
West as Indian fighter and leader in frontier struggles, and 
in 1838 an antimasonic convention, with Thaddeus Stevens 
in control, nominated him in Philadelphia. The national 
Whig convention was held in Harrisburg in December, 
1839. The Tippecanoe enthusiasm ran away with the dele- 
gates. Clay was a candidate with devoted friends who 
would sacrifice everything for him, but it was recognized 
that Antimasons and antislavery men could not be counted 
on to sui)port him, and Harrison, with Tyler to placate the 
friends of Clay, was nominated. The Democrats selected 
Van Buren. The campaign for Harrison went through with 
a hurrah. The log cabin and the barrel of cider triumphed 
rather than the ostensible Whig j^rinciples, banks, internal 
imj^rovements, and paper currency. In fact, in the midst 
of hard times the people were protesting against executive 
interference with settled principles of finance and the sel- 
fishness of of&ce-seeking which seemed to have brought 
them into existence. Van Buren was never popular in 
Pennsylvania, and the honest farmer and warrior of the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 831 

Westj the representative of the common jjeople, was favor- 
ably compared with the rather pretentious but physically 
insignificant occupant of the Presidential chair. The aris- 
tocratic Whigs of the cities were wise enough to keep in the 
background and allow the armory of their enemies to be 
employed in their favor. The young men, for whom the 
name of Jackson had lost its glamour, rushed into the ranks 
of the reform party, and Harrison went into office by an 
overwhelming popular and electoral vote, to which latter 
Pennsylvania contributed thirty, though only by the narrow 
margin of three hundred votes in a poll of two hundred^and 
eighty-eight thousand. The fruits of victory were lost by 
his early death, and Democratic shrewdness soon recovered 
lost ground. 

National politics turned for a time on questions of 
money. The memory of Biddle's insolvent bank was a hard 
load for the Whigs to carry, but they shouldered it and did 
their best to create a new one. President Tyler, however, 
defeated their efforts by his vetoes. They had a more 
popular cause in their opposition to the Democratic policy 
of an exclusive hard money system, and here they pre- 
vailed. 

The tariff question, iii which Pennsylvania was vitally 
Interested, was also affected by these differences. In 1833 
a compromise tariff act had been passed, which provided for 
a reduction of all duties which exceeded twenty per cent. 
One-tenth of the excess was to be taken off each alternate 
year till 1842. Then one-half of the remaining excess was 
to go in January, and the other half in July. This arrange- 
ment had been carried into effect. The gradual decrease 
till 1842 had not had much effect on the markets, for it was 
anticipated, and the tariff men had always hoped that the 
violent reduction provided for in 1842 would be intercepted 
by other legislation. But when Pennsylvania found that 
on top of her financial difficulties of home manufacture, 
particularly severe just then, was added the disturbance of 
the market due to uncertainty as to what Congress would do, 
do, her dismay was evident. With a Whig Legislature and 



332 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Harrison in the Presidential chair, there seemed a good 
prospect of relief. But Tyler, a Southern man, seemed 
to be lapsing into Democracy, and had quarrelled with Clay, 
the bulwark of protection. The bill which followed in Sep- 
tember, 1842, was a political measure, framed to suit the 
objections of the President, full of inconsistencies, but 
granted generally high duties. It was superseded by 
another, passed four years later by the Democrats, with 
lower duties, which remained in force till 1857, when a ple- 
thoric treasury dictated still further reductions, against the 
vote of Pennsylvania alone. 

The Presidential canvass of 1840 was hardly over when 
arrangements were being made for the next. A Whig 
convention at Harrisburg in 1842 proposed General Win- 
field Scott as a candidate, but the people were now deter- 
mined that Clay should have his chance. After the defec- 
tion of Tyler they wanted a man upon whom reliance could 
be placed. He was the great champion of the American 
system of protection, of a national bank, an opponent of 
ultra pro-slavery sentiments and designs, and a most attrac- 
tive personality. There was but one possible candidate in 
the convention of 1844. 

The Democrats, through the operation of the two-thirds 
rule, passed aside Martin Van Buren and nominated a safe, 
respectable, comparatively unknown man, James K. Polk, 
and with him was associated, after Silas Wright,* of Kew 
York, had declined, George Mifflin Dallas, the son of Alex- 
ander J. Dallas, the founder of the National Bank of 1816. 
Dallas, James Buchanan in the Senate, and Charles J. In- 
gersoll, of Philadelphia, now a leader in the House of Eep- 
resentatives, were the chiefs of Pennsylvania Democracy. 
Polk wrote to win Keystone support that they might place 
on their banners '"protection and the tariff of 1842,'' and 
he carried the State. 

The contest in the nation was close, and was decided by 

* Silas Wright received information of his nomination and declined 
it by means of the telegraph, the first case in our history. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 333 

the vote of the ''Liberty i3arty" of New York, which drew 
off enough Whig votes from Clay to allow Polk to carry the 
State, thus precipitating the annexation of Texas and the 
Mexican War. Polk made James Buchanan his Secretary 
of State, and he resigned the Senatorship in March, 1845. 
From this time forward to the Civil War Buchanan led the 
Pennsylvania Democracy. In the same year Simon Cameron 
was elected to the Senate as a Democrat. He had, however, 
agreed to support the tariff of 1842 and the distribution to 
the State of the proceeds of the sale of public lands, both 
favorite measures of the opposition, and thus secured Whig 
votes. 

The Mexican War was not popular at the North, but the 
Southern leaders with their Northern allies, by diplomacy 
and threats, brought about Texan annexation and its inevi- 
table sequel, the war. It was not disguised that the pur- 
pose was to increase slave territory and maintain the politi- 
cal balance, which the rapid growth of the North seemed 
likely to overthrow. Though Polk's election had turned 
on this question, and Pennsylvania had given him her elec- 
toral vote, yet she was not a pro-slavery State, and the 
trend of events was distasteful to her. 

Yet she was loyal to the nation. In May, 1846, six regi- 
ments were called for by the government. She responded 
with an offer of nine, but they were not accepted. Later in 
the year two regiments were mustered in, and they went 
through the campaign doing their duty under Taylor and 
Scott. The first regiment, which was the earliest from a 
Northern State to start for the seat of war, left Pittsburg on 
December 23, 1846. 

But when the fruits of the contest came to be disposed of, 
a Pennsylvania member of the House embodied his name 
in the most striking political phrase of the day. David 
Wilmot was a Democrat from Towanda, who had just com- 
mended himself to the favor of the Southerners by voting 
for the reduced tariff law of 1846. He made an earnest 
speech in which he did not object to the acquisition of fresh 
territory if it were secured against slavery, and offered a 



334 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

resolution that ' ' neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
shall ever exist in any part of said territory except for 
crime." The '' Wilmot proviso" became for the time being 
the rallying cry of the free party of the North. It was car- 
ried by the House and failed in the Senate, and, as was 
usual in those years, the South secured all that it wanted, 
and the new territory was open to slavery. 

Wilmot was supported by his Legislature at home in the 
House by a vote of ninety-six to nothing and in the Senate 
by twenty-four to three. In these larger questions affecting 
freedom and slavery Pennsylvania ns of all parties were 
unequivocally on the side of the North.* 

There was great competition between the parties to secure 
the acceptance of their nominations by the popular general 
of the war, Zachary Taylor, as candidate for the Presidency. 
He had not voted for thirty years, and desired to go into 
office by popular rather than partisan choice. Cameron, 
whose political foresight appreciated his availability, wanted 
him for the Democrats. He was a Southern man and a 
slave-holder, and experience showed that such could be 
trusted. But the Whigs offered more, and nominated the 
general without a platform, to the mortification of the old 
burden-bearers of the party. Clay and Webster. Taylor 
was a plain, modest, but capable man, and proved a good 
candidate. He was supposed to combine in a curious way 
the prestige of military renown and opposition to the policy 
which brought on the war ; to stand for Whig ideas in gen- 
eral, but to be non-committal on the Wilmot proviso and 
other special issues. Pennsylvania gave him her vote. 

By 1850 Pennsylvania had in secure control her great, 
but now manageable, debt. Her credit was good. Her in- 
crease of population since 1840 showed the greatest per- 
centage of any State in the Union, and she had over two 

^ The reputation which Wilmot gained was partly accidental. It 
had been agreed that whoever of a certain number of Northern Demo- 
crats should gain the recognition of the Speaker should offer the reso- 
lution, which had been prepared by Brinckerhoff, of Ohio. Wilmot 
first secured the floor. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 33'5" 

million three hundred thousand people within her borders. 
In the indispensable articles — wheat, iron, and coal — her pro- 
duction exceeded any other State. 

Politically she was naturally Democratic, though by a 
small majority, and the Whig party, by taking advantage 
of a popular candidate or disputes among its adversaries, 
could occasionally secure a victory. There had been much 
to be ashamed of in the decade just closing, corruption of 
voters and legislators, farcical investigations in which the 
fees of witnesses were a prominent feature, squandering of 
public lands and public improvements, weak city adminis- 
tration, small-minded but shrewd public men, who kept 
better men out of ofi&ce ; but the great source of difficulty, 
the public lines of transportation, was now in better condi- 
tion, and there seemed to be an honest desire to uncover the 
errors of the past, and to live a healthier political life. The 
cause of freedom to which she was overwhelmingly com- 
mitted was j)urifying her morals and giving higher impulses 
to her people. This cause was to be the engrossing feature 
of the coming decade. 

The city of Philadelphia now largely regained the literary 
supremacy of the first decade of the century, George E. 
Gra^ham, in 1841, united two periodicals of small circulation, 
and created Graham'' s Magazine. With one of them came 
Edgar Allan Poe as editor. James Eussell Lowell was for a 
short time associated with the editorial labors. Much of 
Poe's best work appeared in its columns. Longfellow wrote 
for it ^ ^ Spanish Student, " '' Nuremberg," '' The Arsenal at 
Springfield," and a number of other small poems. Haw- 
thorne was a contributor ; so were Whipj^le, Phoebe and 
Alice Carey, Simms, Willis, and indeed all the important 
American literary men of its time except Irving. Charles J. 
Peterson, Eufus W. Griswold, James Fenimore Cooper, 
Edwin P. Whipple, Bayard Taylor, and Charles G. Le- 
land were at various times associated with the editorial 
management. The subscription list, encouraged by the bril- 
liancy of the coriDS of contributors, ran up to thirty-five 
thousand, an unprecedented figure for those days. Graham 



336 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

was the first publisher to pay fair prices to American authors, 
and to this and his judgment in recognizing talent, his suc- 
cess is largely due. In 1859 Graham'' s Magazine became the 
American Monthly. 

Bayard Taylor was born in Chester County, in 1825. His 
first poem was printed in the Saturday Evening Post of Phila- 
delphia in 1841. In 1844 he went abroad under contract to 
write letters for certain papers. Those to the New Yorlc 
Tribune were afterwards printed in book form under the title 
of ' ' Views Afoot.' " He was a great traveller and an untiring 
writer as correspondent, poet, and novelist. Some of his 
novels relate to the life surrounding his home in Kennett 
Square, among the Quaker families, from one of which he 
sprang. His great literary work was his translation of 
''Faust." He was made Secretary of the Legation at St. 
Petersburg by President Lincoln, in 1861, and Minister to 
Berlin by President Hayes, in 1877. 

T. Buchanan Eead was also born in Chester County. 
When a boy he ran away from his home and trade, went to 
Ohio, and was successively cigar-maker, actor, and portrait 
painter. He settled in Philadelphia in 1846. During the 
remainder of his life he i^ainted portraits with considerable 
success, and wrote a number of patriotic poems, of which 
''The Wagoner of the Alleghanies," dealing w^th revolu- 
tionary characters, and "Sheridan's Eide" are perhaps the 
most noted. 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XXL 

1850-1860. 

Growth of Antislavery Sentiment— The Underground Railroad— The 
Know-Nothings — PoHtics— The Republican Party— The Fremont 
Campaign— Sale of Internal Improvements— Payment of State Debt 
— Political Morality grows — School Questions — Consolidation and 
Growth of Philadelphia. 

As the Civil War approached, the political issues in PenD- 
sylvania centred more and more around the slavery question. 
In the main it may be said that the State intended to be 
faithful to the compromise measures of 1850, which were 
adopted as a result of the forceful personality of Henry 
Clay and the vast respect felt for the statesmanship of 
Daniel Webster. But it became more and more evident as 
the years passed on that no i3ermanent settlement was pos- 
sible on this basis, and antislavery sentiment grew in extent 
and intensity. Especially in the southeastern counties, 
where the Quaker opposition to slavery had never slumbered, 
the determination was strong not to deny the fugitive slaves 
the shelter and aid humanity demanded, and not to obey 
that crowning infamy of compromise, the fugitive slave law. 
And if, as became their quiet disposition, this determination 
did not show itself in mobs and armed seizures, such as 
were common in the more militant atmosphere of Boston, 
it was none the less effective. Thomas Garrett, a Pennsyl- 
vania Friend, who had moved to Wilmington, was instru- 
mental in aiding at least two thousand seven hundred blacks 
in their escape to freedom, w^as ruined in estate, and re- 
peatedly threatened with murder. Almost every Quaker 
home, and they were legion, through the rich counties of 
Delaware and Chester, could be counted on to shield a run- 
away slave. But in time the more trustworthy and willing 
became regularly organized into a line of the underground 

22 337 



338 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

railroad, which quietly passed on the fugitive, night by 
night, till he reached safe quarters in Canada. 

The lines of the underground railroad crossed the line of 
Mason and Dixon at points along its whole length, and, 
in their willingness to aid humanity, men were becoming 
familiar with ^' a higher law" than an enactment of Congress 
or a Constitution of the United States. Honest farmers 
were fined the value of a slave for giving a hungry fugitive 
something to eat, or liberty to sleep in a barn, and they and 
their neighbors did not love the southern institution more 
for this injustice. 

A party of slave-hunters from Maryland attacked a com- 
pany of colored men, among whom it was claimed a slave 
had taken refuge, in Lancaster County. As the negroes 
were armed, there seemed a prospect of a fight, which indeed 
soon followed, to the discomfiture of the whites. Two 
peaceable Friends in the neighborhood tried to prevail on 
both parties to avoid bloodshed, but indignantly refused to 
obey the summons of the sheriff to aid in capturing the 
fugitives. They were carried to Philadelphia on a charge of 
treason, were defended by Thaddeus Stevens, and acquitted. 

In 1855 a North Carolinian passed through Philadelphia 
with his three slaves. Passmore Williamson, then an agent 
for the Abolition Society, informed these negroes that they 
became free when they entered Pennsylvania soil, and held 
the owner while they escaped, aided by a company of colored 
people. Williamson was brought into court by the slave- 
owner, and was consigned to prison. His case was taken to 
the Supreme Court of the State, and there argued on the 
ground that the slaves were not fugitives, and hence ac- 
cording to Pennsylvania law were free. But the court held 
that the freedom of the prisoner could only result from an 
apology to the court below to clear him of contempt, and 
this Williamson refused to give. He ultimately secured 
his release without a compromise by declaring that he could 
not produce the slaves, as they were beyond his control. 

Such things as these educated public sentiment, but it 
was slow to assert itself in politics. The Democratic party 






HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 339 

was evidently controlled by the slave-holders. The Whig 
party was less so, and President Taylor seemed disposed to 
take strong Union, if not antislavery, views. But Vice- 
President Fillmore, who succeeded him, was a Whig of 
the Webster type. The abolition candidate for governor, 
F.J. Lemoyne, had i)olled less than two thousand votes in 
1847, and at the special election of the following year only 
forty-eight voters registered themselves in the Free Soil 
party, as it was then called. In 1851 there was no candi- 
date, and three years later the Free Soilers polled only about 
two thousand votes, and yet the great Eepublican party was 
then about to be born. 

The Whigs never recovered from the defeat of Winfield 
Scott by Franklin Pierce in 1852, and the field was open 
for a new party to contest for power with the triumphant 
Democrats. In the process of ripening antislavery senti- 
ment, and moulding its political machinery, the native- 
American party occupied the ground. 

The Democrats elected William Bigler governor, in 1851, 
by a majority of about eight thousand over his Whig com- 
petitor. Governor Johnston. At this election one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty votes were cast for the candidate of 
the new party, which was to have an important but brief 
existence. 

We have seen that the Philadelphia riots of 1844 were 
the result of a strong feeling against Catholics. It was as 
yet sporadic and temporary, but early in the fifties an or- 
ganization shrouded in mystery, enveloped by secret signs 
and passwords, began to have general political existence. 
If an outsider asked any questions, the inevitable answer 
was, ''I don't know," and the popular sobriquet of the 
party soon became ^^ Know-Nothing." Its watchword was 
a saying attributed to Washington, ' ' Put none but Amer- 
icans on guard to-night." Its enemies were the Catholics, 
who were supposed to owe allegiance to the Pope tran- 
scending that to America ; the Germans, whose pleasure- 
loving and socialistic habits were thought to be antagonistic 
to the American Sabbath and the Bible in schools, and 



340 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 






immigrants in general who were not informed about or 
loyal to American ideas. Its objects were to change nat- 
uralization laws so as to exclude foreigners from voting, to, 
support the public schools with the Bible in them, to oppog 
political Romanism, and denominationalism in general whei 
it injected itself into education or the State. By 1854 it hj 
assumed large proportions. It gave up its secret mummen 
and appeared in the open, challenging opposition. Man^ 
Whigs, finding their party supports breaking away under 
their feet, joined it, and ministers of nearly all Protestant 
denominations gave it strenuous assistance. 

In 1854 it was strong enough to elect, with the aid of 
what was left of the Whigs, James Pollock by the largest 
majoritj^ given to a governor since the death of the Federal 
party. It could not, however, prevent the election of the 
defeated candidate (Bigler) to the Senate the following year 
by the Democrats, and after this its followers left it, lured 
by the more vital issue of antislavery. In 1857 William 
F. Packer, the Democrat, polled one hundred and eighty- 
eight thousand votes, David Wilmot, the Free Soil candi- 
date, one hundred and forty-six thousand, and Isaac Hazel- 
hurst, the American, twenty- eight thousand, and this was 
the end of the Know-Nothing x^arty in State politics. 

The issues of American institutions, the Bible, the Sab- 
bath, and the public school did not pass away, but under 
the surface, and cropping out sometimes, as in the American 
Protective Association of forty years later, have had work 
to do ; but the party was defeated in the attempt to make a 
President and dictate a national policy. 

Men were beginning to rally around the slavery question, 
and other matters sank into the background. The repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, which seemed to open the 
way to the unlimited extension of slavery, aroused the 
fiercest feelings of opposition in the North. While aboli- 
tionists were generally regarded as dangerous disturbers of 
the peace, moderate men were beginning to see that there 
was no limit to the encroachments of the slave power, — that 
it must be met by an opposition as determined and as united 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 341 

as itself. The Free Soil party seemed to offer the oppor- 
tunity to combine, and the old Whigs, the antislavery 
Americans (for the party had divided on the issue in a con- 
vention held in Philadelphia in 1855), many Democrats and 
all abolitionists voted the Free Soil ticket. But in a little 
time the question of free soil became merged in the larger 
issue of opposition to the institution of slavery, and the 
Republican party, started in the Michigan peninsula, sprang 
into existence. In Pennsylvania it was made up of incon- 
gruous elements. Old enemies became allies. Simon Cam- 
eron came in from the Democratic camp, shrewd enough 
to see the opening opportunities. He had acted with his 
party in repealing the Missouri Compromise, but now 
brought his organizing ability to the service of the Repub- 
licans, and was rewarded by the senatorship in 1857. Thad- 
deus Stevens, a hater of all things secret and oppressive, 
brought in from long years of Whig and antimasonic ser- 
vice the power of his irresistible personality. He was a 
Republican by settled conviction, and had been voting with 
the Free Soilers and strong antislavery Whigs in Congress, 
where he was destined to be the leader of the Republicans 
through the stormy war and reconstruction periods. David 
Wilmot and his more conservative neighbor, Galusha A. 
Grow, the one soon to be Republican Senator and the other 
Speaker of the National House of Representatives, aban- 
doned their Democratic associations and placed themselves 
in the party of their sympathizers. The old abolitionists 
saw the fruition of their hitherto cheerless endeavors now 
justified by the grasping demands of the South. Governor 
Johnston, who had been the candidate of the American 
party for Vice-President, carried with him the great body 
of his associates, who were willing for the present to sink 
their much loved issues. All of the Whigs but the most 
conservative, under the leadership of Andrew G. Cui-tin, 
soon to be governor, were found in the ranks. There was 
a general combination of all elements opposed to Democracy, 
which now stood in the South unequivocally for slavery and 
in the North for non-interference. 



342 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The first national convention of the new party met in 
Philadelphia in June, 1856. David Wilmot presented the 
platform of principles. John C. Fremont and William L. 
Dayton were nominated. The Democrats placed in the 
field James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. This veteran 
statesman had been minister to England during the troubles 
of the past four years and had thus avoided the enmities of 
his competitors, Pierce and Douglas. In all his previous ex- 
perience in public life as Senator, Secretary of State, and 
foreign minister he had been distinguished by moderation, 
dignity, and ability. While a pro-slavery Democrat, he 
yet retained the respect of the moderate men of his party in 
the Xorth. These circumstances and his supposed ability 
to carry Pennsylvania dictated his nomination. What was 
left of the Whigs and the branch of the Americans which 
was not antislavery, resuscitated Millard Fillmore. There 
had been somewhat of a reaction in the popular mind from 
the heat of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Timid 
men were frightened at the menace of secession by the 
South, and Buchanan easily won by a popular majority in 
the Union of a half million over Fremont and a million 
over Fillmore, and an electoral majority of fifty-two. Penn- 
sylvania, after being carried by questionable means in Octo- 
ber by the Democrats by a small majority, voted for her 
distinguished citizen, and slavery had scored its last Presi- 
dential victory. 

It was disheartening to the Eepublicans, after the clear 
issues they had placed before the people, to be thus de- 
feated, and yet they had accomplished great things. They 
had carried New England completely. They had carried 
New York against her hitherto honored son, Millard Fill- 
more. Buchanan only carried Pennsylvania by the narrow 
margin of one thousand votes in a total of four hundred 
and sixty thousand ; indeed, the Eepublicans had carried 
all the North except New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, 
Illinois, and the Pacific States. The American party lin- 
gered along with a small representation in Congress, but 
protests against naturalization laws and the union of church 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 343 

and state went for little among tho more potential issues 
I which excited men's minds. 

Buchanan took with him into his cabinet Jeremiah S. 
Black, a distinguished jurist of western Pennsylvania, first 
as Attorney-General and afterwards as Secretary of State. 
Edwin M. Stanton was also for a time in the cabinet, and 
won great fame afterwards as Lincoln' s Secretary of War. 
He was a resident of Pittsbm-g for a number of years prior 

to 1857. 

In the meantime the State was wrestling with its finan- 
cial problem. In 1850 it was readily paying its interest and 
a half million dollars of the principal. It soon increased 
this to a million dollars, and could have maintained this 
rate, but the demand for internal improvements was not 
yet dead. A canal up the north branch of the Susquehanna 
to connect with the :N'ew York system was instituted, and 
about a couple of a million dollars were given to this. A 
new railroad over the Alleghanies to replace the portage 
system of inclined planes and levels took nearly as much 
more. New tracks were necessary on the Columbia Rail- 
road, and floods would destroy canals. Despite the warn- 
ings of governors who generally advocated the special im- 
provement under consideration and opposed all to come, 
the debt remained at forty million dollars till 1856. 

Governor Pollock declared the system of public improve- 
ments to be characterized by ^'prodigality, extravagance, 
and corrupt political favoritism," and again by '' misman- 
agement and reckless expenditure." Of the Portage Rail- 
road he said, ''It is anxiously hoped that this unproductive 
improvement may soon cease its cormorant demands on the 
treasury." The main line was so conducted that its ex- 
penses equalled its receipts. 

Three separate times did the Legislature offer the line for 
sale. But the conditions and the price, ten mUlion dollars, 
were not attractive. 

With the Pennsylvania Railroad in operation it seemed 
undesirable for the State to own the parallel competing line 
of railroad and canal. For a quarter of a century she had 



344 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

loaded herself with debt and suffered all the inconveniences 
of State ownership for a meagre return. The only excuse 
was the development of the country and of the terminal 
cities, and this would now be secured. The company offered 
the State seven million five hundred thousand dollars of its 
secured bonds, and the State sold its main line from Pitts- 
burg to Philadelphia. 

A year later the Suubury and Erie Eailroad bought of 
the State all the public works remaining in its possession. 
This included the Delaware Canal, the north and west 
branch divisions of the Susquehanna Canal, and the Susque- 
hanna division of the Pennsylvania Canal, and the price 
paid was three million five hundred thousand dollars. In 
this deed of sale there was a provision that if these were 
sold to other companies at an advance the State should 
have seventy-five per cent, of the profit. This brought in 
about two hundred and eighty thousand dollars more. 

By January 1, 1859, the State had in her sinking fund for 
the payment of her public debt over eleven million dollars 
in bonds. Her debt above these now amounted to about 
twenty-eight million dollars. 

She was thus clear of the costly, corrupting, and unsuc- 
cessful experiment on which at its inception such high 
hopes were founded of owning the lines of transportation. 
That it was a mistake to enter upon it is not certain. The 
great industrial development of the State was due in large 
measure to the early facilities for commerce. Miner, farmer, 
and manufacturer prospered, population and product in- 
creased at a wonderful rate. It is to these indirect results 
that one must point to find the justification for the enter- 
prise. Against these must be placed the loss of three- 
fourths of the investment, the loss of credit, and a merce- 
nary element introduced into public life which lowered the 
tone of her politicians and voters. 

In order to make State ownership of transportation lines 
successful a higher grade of political morals than prevailed 
in Pennsylvania through the middle of the century is neces- 
sary. Everything revived with the sale. The next year 






HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 345 

the debt was decreased a million dollars, and Governor 
Packer congratulated the Legislature on the fact that it was 
less than it had been since 1842. 

The last of the relief notes lingered along till about 1855, 
when they were extinguished. So uneasy did the people be- 
come with the finances that in 1856 they demanded and se- 
cured, by a vote of about six to one, a constitutional amend- 
ment requiring an annual appropriation of at least two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars by the Legislature to the 
sinking fund for the payment of the public debt. 

A little earlier than this another amendment made all 
district judges elective rather than appointive. By threat- 
ened vetoes the governors succeeded in breaking up the 
custom of passing *' omnibus bills," —that is, bills in which 
various items, some of doubtful character and others un- 
questionably good and even necessary, were mingled to- 
gether so that all must stand or fall together, a i^rovision 
afterwards incorporated into the constitution. 

The temperance question forced itself forward, and in 
1854 a prohibitory law was submitted to the people. It was 
defeated by a majority of about five thousand in a total poll 
of three hundred and twenty- two thousand, the country 
districts largely supporting it. The decade is remarkable 
for a development of moral questions both in national and 
State matters, and in reading the record the impression is 
pretty strong that a better spirit was prevailing in popular 
thought and public customs than for a long time before. 
Politics were becoming more ethical, and a righteous life 
was an aid to advancement. 

After the sale of the railroads and canals the problem of 
State government was greatly simplified. The era of large 
appropriations to charitable and educational institutions 
had not begun, and the few State-aided charities, prisons 
and courts of justice, and the State debt were the main 
sources of expenditure. There was comparatively little op- 
portunity for corruption, and for a few years — about 1860 — 
the government was probably as good as at any time since 
1776. The Eepublican party in its early days was made up 



346 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

of men of principle, and these for a time kept the State 
pure. 

When Governor Pollock sent in his annual message in 
January, 1857, he congratulated the State on its unusual 
prosperity and its great harvests, and said there were no 
financial embarrassments or commercial distress or political 
or social evils in prospect. He soon had reason to change 
his opinions ; a great financial revulsion passed over the 
country later in the year, in which Pennsylvania had her 
full share. Banks in all States suspended specie payments, 
long -established business houses failed, and all the symp- 
toms of a severe disease of the commercial body existed. 
The protectionists were fond of charging it to the lower 
duties of the tariff of 1846, which drew away the specie to 
Europe to pay for importations, but, as in all such cases, the 
causes were too complex to be analyzed. It followed a 
period of over- trading and bank expansion. A special ses- 
sion of the Legislature was called in October, and aid was 
given to the banks which tended to mitigate the difficulty, 
and the crisis was not as severe or as long continued as 
that of twenty years earlier. 

The public school system was undergoing a rapid and 
healthful development. The State was now covered with 
organized school districts, and the original opposition had 
nearly disappeared. Some religious bodies maintained 
their own denominational schools, and in and around Phila- 
delphia the endowed and private schools had such a hold 
that many of the well-to-do citizens preferred to patronize 
them. This section never reached the condition of New 
England and the Northwest, where the public schools satis- 
fied the demands of all classes. Private academies still 
flourished, and in the country districts these held their 
ground till supplanted by the normal schools. 

The Department of Education was made a separate 
branch of the State government in 1857. The need for 
trained teachers was strongly felt, and in the same year 
the Legislature divided the State into large districts, giving 
to each the privilege of maintaining a normal school. Prop- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 347 

erty was secured by the action of public-spirited citizens, 
and loans were made by the State, secured by the assets of 
the schools. These loans were added to yearly by succeed- 
ing legislatures till strong and well-equipped schools arose. 
They sounded the death-knell of many private academies. 
The State also assisted in the school expenses of those who 
would engage to teach in the public schools. Thus State 
aided, the schools were able to reduce expenses, and were 
soon filled with young men and women, only a portion of 
whom had any intention of teaching. They afforded high 
school education of good quality to any who could afford to 
pay the expense, which amounted to but little more than 
the cost of board. The friends of the private schools, which 
were doomed to extinction, were opposed to them ; so 
were many of the colleges, towards whom for a time they 
took an inimical position, but they grew and strengthened 
in public regard and became valuable agencies in educa- 
tion. 

Two other educational factors of considerable potency 
started into existence about the same time. The first teach- 
ers' institute was held in Chester County in 1855, and the 
idea rapidly crystallized into a permanent institution. The 
gathering became the chief event of the year in the county 
town. Teachers of all grades came together, the public 
joined in the meetings, and were themselves educated to an 
interest in school matters. 

Still more important was the establishment of the county 
superintendencies. These officials examined and gave cer- 
tificates to teachers, and acted as the educational advisers 
and agents for their districts. Though without authority to 
select teachers, which was given to the local board, their in- 
fluence was most stimulating and healthful. Few if any 
States have a better organized system than these additions 
gave to Pennsylvania. For much of its value and its de- 
velopment the credit is due to Thomas H. Burrowes and 
James P. Wickersham. 

By 1850 the population of Philadelphia was about three 
hundred and sixty thousand, with nearly fifty thousand 



348 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

more in the more sparsely inhabited district around, which 
constituted the county of Philadelphia. The "city," which 
was limited as in Penn's day by the Delaware and Schuyl- 
kill, Vine and South Streets, had its own government. 
Close around, and by this time practically a part of the real 
city, were separate corporations, — Southwark, the Northern 
Liberties, Moyamensing, Spring Garden, Kensington, North 
Penn, and Eichmond, with West Philadelphia and Bel- 
mont soon to be added. Farther into the country were 
boroughs like German town and Manayunk, while the rest 
of the county was divided into thirteen townships. 

This arrangement produced a complicated and inefficient 
government, and in 1850 the first step towards consolidation 
was taken, when the police forces of the city and of the 
various corporations were placed under one head. This was 
followed in 1854 by enlarging the city of Philadelphia so as 
to include all of the county and absorbing in one all the 
corporations, boroughs, and townships, with their assets 
and liabilities. The outlying organizations, in anticipation 
of an assumption of their debts, increased them some four 
millions of dollars within a month preceding the corpo- 
ration, and started the enlarged city into existence with 
an obligation to its creditors of over seventeen million 
dollars. 

This debt had largely been incurred by investments in 
railroads converging to the city, and was probably justified 
by the business rewards accruing. The coal and iron trade 
and the manufactories were placed in a prosperous and 
growing condition. Some of these factories were large es- 
tablishments with a great output. But many were the 
creations of comparatively poor men who found independent 
employment in controlling the work of a single loom or 
lathe, and who thus became independent of employers, and 
in time often employers themselves. These little establish- 
ments, encouraged by cheap coal and materials, brought in 
a great immigration of skilled labor from Europe. The 
owner of his machinery would also desire a home, and more 
homes grew up in Philadelphia than in its larger neighbor 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 349 

to the north. This development went on with accelerated 
rapidity, when the well- conceived laws governing building 
societies were passed by the Legislature. Thus, in an unex- 
pected manner the idea of Penn that his city should be a 
collection of separate homes was evolved. 

In foreign commerce Kew York had long since passed 
her. The Erie canal and the better channel to the sea had 
diverted the Western trade to the wharves of the northern 
city, while in Philadelphia both imports and exports had 
diminished more than half since 1825. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

1860-1870. 

Curtin's Election — Political Reaction — Mustering of Troops — Penn- 
sylvania in the War — Invasions of Pennsylvania — Battle of Gettys- 
burg — Soldiers' Orphans Schools — Decrease of Debt — State Politics. 

By 1860 Pennsylvania was fully committed to the anti- 
slavery cause. The Eepublican candidate for governor, 
Andrew G. Curtin^ was elected in October by a majority of 
thirty-two thousand, and this presaged the still larger victory 
of November, when Abraham Lincoln received ninety thou- 
sand more votes than John C. Breckenridge, and sixty thou- 
sand more than the combined opposition. Such figures were 
unusual in those days, and coming from a State so conser- 
vative and so consistently Democratic as Pennsylvania, indi- 
cated the strength of the sentiment outraged by the grasping 
demands and the threats of the South. 

Scarcely had the vote been cast and the muttered menace 
of disunion come back from the slave-holding States, when 
Pennsylvania seemed alarmed at the stand she had taken, 
and a strong reaction swept over the State. While Gov- 
ernor Packer, in his retiring message, stated that secession 
was clearly erroneous, yet he urged the necessity of modi- 
fying the extreme antislavery laws of the statute-book. 
Up to 1847 owners accompanied by slaves might pass 
through the State, and for a time remain there without 
molestation, and he intimated that it would be a good thing 
to return to this condition. He declared that Pennsylvania 
had always been faithful to its constitutional obligations to 
other States relating to slavery, and reviewed conditions 
beginning as far back as 1705. Eesolutions were introduced 
into the Legislature declaring the duty of the State to assist 
in every way in the restoration of fugitives. A mass meeting 
in Independence Square, held December 13, 1860, attended 
350 




GOV. ANDREW G. CURTIN. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 351 

by some fifty thouvsand people, seemed willing to go to any 
length in satisfying the demands of the South. The city 
councils requested the call, and Mayor Henry presided. 
The speeches were conciliatory even to the verge of ob- 
sequiousness. The resolutions pledged a careful search of 
the State laws and the repeal of every statute at all in- 
vading the rights of citizens of other States ; pointed with 
pride to the efiective execution of the fugitive slave law by 
Philadelphia 5 suggested that all slaves rescued by mobs 
should be paid for by the county where the rescue was 
made ; and wound up with the statement that ^'all denun- 
ciations of slavery as existing in the United States . . . are 
inconsistent with the spirit of brotherhood and kindness.'^ 

This meeting represents low-water mark in public senti- 
ment in the Quaker City. At no other time in the past 
would such resolutions have been possible. Pessimists 
would find abundant justification for their views concern- 
ing the ultimate triumph of evil in noting the apparent 
downward trend of public sentiment since the more healthy 
days from 1820 to 1830 w hen slavery was scouted as an evil, 
and opposition to its extension declared to be the duty of 
every son of Pennsylvania. 

Her own son in the Presidential chair but reflected faith- 
fully the prevailing feeling in offering every compromise to 
relieve the offended pride of the defeated South, and in this 
he was supported not only by Pennsylvania, but by the 
other Northern States. Had the South wisely seconded this 
burst of fraternal feeling, and demanded the terms the ]N^orth 
was too ready to grant, they might have intrenched their 
institution behind an invincible bulwark of Northern law 
and sentiment. 

But with the recollection that Major Anderson was be- 
sieged in Fort Sumter there came a change. When fra- 
ternity was spurned and secession was claimed as a right, 
and it was intimated that nothing was too grovelling for the 
mercenary middle- class Puritans of the North, the age of 
compromises ended. The demand on President Buchanan 
for a vigorous defence of national rights was responded to 



352 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

by him with an assertion of Union doctrines. But he was 
in a false position. The large i)ortion of his party was in 
rebellion, and he could do but little in the short time left to 
him in office. When Lincoln came in and Sumter fell, the 
reaction was over, and a loyal and practically unanimous 
response came fi'om Pennsylvania to the President's demand 
for support. 

Governor Curtin proved to be the right man for the situ- 
ation. He was now forty-five years old, of Irish parentage, 
of Whig antecedents, with a good record as Governor Pol- 
lock's Secretary of the Commonwealth, an office that em- 
braced the duties of superintendent of the j)ublic schools. 
The energy and ability with which he seconded the demands 
of the national administration and kept his State in the 
front ranks of supporters of the Union made him, with 
Andrew, of Massachusetts, and Morton, of Indiana, one 
of the great ^' war governors." 

A wave of loyalty to the Union swept over the State when 
the South Carolinians, on April 12, fired on the United 
States troops in Charleston Harbor. Hesitation was at an 
end, and all desires to satisfy Southern demands were con- 
fined to a few, who kept in the background. 

Pennsylvania was poorly prepared for hostilities. She 
had no trained militia, except in the cities no organized 
military companies, but she was rich in men and resources, 
and when President Lincoln called for seventy -five thousand 
men for three months, or the emergency, and assigned four- 
teen regiments as her share, enough men for twenty-five 
immediately presented themselves. The governor retained 
the excess in the service of the State, foreseeing the future 
need, and organized the Pennsylvania Reserves, which were 
afterwards accepted by the national government. The first 
troops thrown into Washington were two thousand one 
hundred and sixty Pennsylvanians, who marched through 
a howling and hooting mob in Baltimore, with set faces and 
unloaded guns, reaching the capital six days after the firing 
on Sumter. They were thanked by Congress in a formal 
resolution. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 353 

The nearness of Pennsylvania to the scene of operation, 
her material strength, and the willingness and capacity of 
her governor made her more than once through the war an 
important prop to the policy of President Lincoln and the 
Union. Kor was there during the war any cessation of her 
disposition to fight it through. Her peace men, Quakers, 
Mennonites, Dunkers, and others, received as much con- 
sideration as could be expected in the exciting times, 
though some of the former for refusing to perform mili- 
tary service when drafted had to undergo brief imprison- 
ment. But as their principles were well known and their 
loyalty unquestioned, no severe condemnation was placed 
upon them. The Democrats who had not come over into 
the Eepublican party never dared to utter secession sen- 
timents in their public platforms, and many of them 
were loyal supporters of the war. ^'Copperheads," as 
Southern sympathizers were popularly called, existed, but 
they were tremendously disliked. In the main the great 
resources of the State were given to Lincoln and Curtin, 
notwithstanding the fact that in 1863 the governor could 
only muster fifteen thousand majority, and a year later the 
President had but five thousand more. Their antagonists 
were not all disunionists, though strenuous efforts were at 
the time made to make them appear so. 

In the early days of the war Pennsylvania furnished more 
and better equipped troops than any other State. Camp 
Curtin was established on the edge of Harrisburg on the day 
the first troops entered Washington. Later it was taken in 
charge by the national government, and was one of the 
great distributing and convalescent centres for soldiers 
throughout the war and also a depot of military supplies. 

In all, Pennsylvania furnished three hundred and sixty- 
two thousand two hundred and eighty- four men to the ser- 
vice of the government and an additional twenty-five thou- 
sand militia who came out in an emergency. They did not 
all join voluntarily. Some were urged by extravagant 
bounties which localities would offer to fill up their quota, 
and this competition for men became in time a costly evil. 

23 



354 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Some were drafted, and went unwillingly or bought substi- 
tutes. But the great number of them were actuated by a 
spirit of love for the Union, and of hatred for slavery and a 
determination to end it. 

Three times was the soil of Pennsylvania invaded by the 
Confederates. In October, 1862, a body of cavalry under 
General Stuart crossed the Potomac and penetrated to 
Chambersburg, plundering as it went. By the time troops 
were collected to repel the raid the enemy had recrossed 
the Potomac at Harper' s Ferry. 

It was during the darkest time of the conflict, in June 
and July, 1863, that Pennsylvania was again invaded and 
the great battle of the war fought within her borders. 
Fresh from the victory of Chancellorsville, proud of its 
commander, and splendidly disciplined and equipped, the 
Southern army marched north to throw upon Pennsylvania 
the burden of the war, peradventure to take a great North- 
ern city, and with Washington in its grasp dictate terms of 
peace. 

Up through the Cumberland Valley they proceeded to- 
wards Harrisburg, while a division was detached to take 
possession of the bridge over the Susquehanna at Columbia, 
tear up the tracks of the Pennsylvania Eailroad, and march 
u]) the eastern bank of the river. Only part of this pro- 
gramme was carried out. York was seized and laid under 
contribution, but by the time the river was reached a regi- 
ment of militia had burned the Columbia bridge, and the 
Confederates rejoined the main army. 

That army, with Lee at its head, seventy thousand men, 
reached Chambersburg. Advance bodies had pressed down 
the valley, and had come within a few miles of Harrisburg. 
Governor Curtin issued a proclamation calling upon the 
militia to gather at the capital. 

In the mean time Meade had superseded Hooker in com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, had turned northward, 
and on the last day of June reached the Pennsylvania line, 
making his head-quarters at Taney town, thirteen miles south 



[( 




GEN. GEORGE G. MEADE. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 365 

of Gettysburg. Lee drew in his scattered detaclimeiits, and 
marched southeastward to meet the Northern army. 

The advance-guards met north and west of Gettysburg on 
July 1. Eeynolds, the Union general commanding, was 
killed. His troops were defeated and driven through the 
town, making a stand on a high hill to the south, which had 
been used for a cemetery, and on which Reynolds, seeing its 
strategic value, had ordered breastworks thrown up. Han- 
cock was sent forward to take the place of the fallen 
general. 

Meade was urged to concentrate his troops at this point, 
and, giving up a chosen battle-ground near Taneytown, ad- 
vanced with his whole army, reaching the field on the even- 
ing of July 1. Lee had also brought in his army except 
the cavalry under Stuart, who were to the east of the Union 
army, and Pickett's corps, which had not come from Mary- 
land. When all gathered together, the two armies were 
nearly equal in size, about ninety thousand men each. 

Gettj^sburg is in a beautiful and fertile valley. On the 
western side this valley is bounded by a low wooded ridge 
running north and south, and at its nearest point about half 
a mile from the town. Here stand the buildings of the 
Lutheran Seminary, and these give the name to Seminary 
Ridge. The valley is about a mile wide. On the eastern 
side three miles south of Gettysburg is Round Top, a wooded 
conical hill, and just north is Little Round Top, mostly 
bare of trees and covered with huge boulders. From this 
northward the eastern ridge, which bears the name of 
Cemetery Ridge, is of less elevation, but at its northern end, 
where the cemetery is, it again rises and turns abruptly to 
the eastward. The Union army occupied at the beginning 
of the second day of the battle Cemetery Ridge, presenting 
a convex front to the enemj^. The Confederates lined Semi- 
nary Ridge from opposite Round Top to the town, thence 
through the streets and extending southeastwardly faced 
their opponents in a concave line nearly eight miles long. 
The Northern troops had thus the advantage for purposes 
of defence of an inside position, where troops could be 



366 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

easily thrown from one place to another, to strengthen weak 
points or resist sudden attacks. The Southern army in the 
vallej^ back of Seminary Eidge could carry on their manoe- 
uvres perfectly screened from Union eyes and guns. 

The morning of July 2 was spent in strengthening de- 
fences and arranging battle lines. At about four o'clock 
an artillery duel began, and under cover of the fire brigade 
after brigade of Southern troops was thrown at one point 
after another of the Northern defences. Around Little 
Eound Top bloody work was done. Almost taken again 
and again, it was saved at the last moment by timely re- 
enforcements. Sickles' s division in advance of the Union 
line was driven in. Around on the extreme east ground 
occupied by the Northern troops was taken and held by the 
Confederates, and in the evening the soldiers of both 
armies slaked their thirst at the same spring. 

The first day's fight resulted in Southern victory. On 
the second day what little was gained was also on their 
side. The morning of July 3 dawned upon troubled gen- 
erals and tired soldiers, feeling that the decisive day had 
come. Pickett's and Stuart's men had arrived the night 
before, and upon these the brunt of the third day's work 
was to fall. 

The Union line in the morning recovered the lost ground 
of the night at their right, and then followed an ominous 
stillness. After noon the artillery duel fi'om over two hun- 
dred guns opened the greatest display of its kind ever wit- 
nessed on the American continent. For two hours across 
the plain which separated the two armies every known 
form of missile passed like a hurricane. The Union fire 
slackened, and the Southern generals, supposing their guns 
were silenced, prepared for the final act. From Little 
Round Top Warren signalled the news to Meade that a 
great charge was forming in front of the Southern line. 
From out the smoke emerged Pickett's Confederates. 
Across a mile of plain, their ranks mowed down by the 
Federal fire which now was concentrated upon them, straight 
towards a cluster of trees where Hancock's men were 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 357 

grouped ready to receive them, they raarched with the 
steadiness of veteran troops. They rushed up the slope into 
^Hhe bloody angle" of the stone wall which fronted the 
Union line. They drove the infantry from the defences and 
the gunners from the guns and planted their banners within 
the line of their opponents. But they were now too few 
to follow up their advantage, and, raked on both sides by 
opposing fires, all that was left of them slowly retreated. 

It was the turning-point of the war. The next day Grant 
took Vicksburg, and after that the fortunes of the Confed- 
eracy waned. Lee led his shattered troops back across the 
Potomac, his adversaries too exhausted seriously to inter- 
pose any obstacles. But he left six thousand five hun- 
dred dead soldiers on the battle-field, and his losses 
amounted to nearly forty thousand men. The Union losses 
were less, for they fought behind defences, but twenty- five 
thousand were killed, wounded, and missing. 

Pennsylvania contributed among others to the battle 
Generals Meade, Eeynolds, Hancock, and Geary ; five hun- 
dred and thirty- four of her citizens lie interred in the Na- 
tional Cemetery, and many others were borne away by their 
friends. The national government has assumed the care 
of the battle-field and opened avenues along the lines once 
occupied by the armies, while the organizations of the old 
soldiers who served there have contributed over four hun- 
dred monuments to mark their various positions on the 
field or the sites of the death of officers and comrades. Xo 
important battle in history is so securely preserved in every 
detail as Gettysburg. 

Again a year later Pennsylvania was invaded by the Con- 
federates. Whether in retaliation, as they claimed, for the 
losses in the Shenandoah Valley, or as others thought for 
supposed sympathy with the raid of John Brown, the town 
of Chambersburg, in Franklin County, was marked out for 
destruction. Detachments numbering about ten thousand 
men crossed the Potomac at three different points, finding 
little to oppose them. They occupied the town and de- 
manded five hundred thousand dollars as a ransom. As 



358 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

this was not paid tlie work of firing began. The doors of 
private houses were beaten in, valuables stolen, oil poured 
over the furniture and the match applied. In ten minutes 
the whole town was in flames, three million dollars of prop- 
erty was swept away, and three thousand people left home- 
less and in many cases penniless. To estimate the damages 
to loyal men in the border counties from the three Southern 
raids and the marchings of both armies a commission was 
appointed by the State, and these claims were paid. Indi- 
vidually small, they amounted in the aggregate to about 
three million five hundred thousand dollars. This amount 
was claimed by the State from the federal government. 

Scarcely was the war over when the idea, stimulated by 
Governor Curtin, that the orphans of the soldiers were to be 
a public charge, took possession of the popular mind. At 
first they were quartered at the public expense in existing 
schools, but later special schools were established, where 
clothing, education, and maintenance were furnished free. 
Pennsylvania led the way in this movement, and her muni- 
ficence was imitated but not equalled by any other State. 

The finances of the State by the beginning of the war 
were in such a condition that even the extraordinary ex- 
penses caused no embarrassment. Loans for these were 
easily secured. By the end of 1866 the debt had been re- 
duced in the aggregate over five million dollars, notwith- 
standing the fact that about as much had been borrowed. 
During the six years of the administration of Governor 
Geary, who followed Curtin, ten millions more were paid. 
It was a time of abounding prosperity, and the objects of 
State taxation were plentiful and rich. The tax on real 
estate, placed originally to pay off the debt incurred by 
internal improvements, was repealed at the close of the 
war, leaving this resource for local purposes. 

Governor Geary had served with distinction through the 
Mexican and Civil Wars, and as governor of Kansas in the 
troubled times preceding admission to the Union. In 1872 
another governor of military reputation, John F. Hartranft, 
succeeded him for two terms. He was followed by Henry 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 359 

M. Hoyt. These were all Eepublicans, and elected by good 
majorities. The State was now as reliably Eepublican as it 
had been Democratic before the war. But in 1882 the grow- 
ing discontent with Republican leadership led to an Inde- 
pendent Eepublican movement, which made Eobert E. 
Pattison, the Democratic candidate, governor by a 
plurality of forty thousand votes. The protection issue, 
with which the prosperity of Pennsylvania seemed to be 
inseparably connected as a great manufacturing State, was 
now the Eepublican battle cry, and that with memories of 
war and reconstruction made a revolution necessary to carry 
a Democratic ticket. 

The dominating personality in State politics was now 
Simon Cameron. He had been elected as a Democrat to the 
United States Senate in 1845, succeeding James Buchanan, 
and again as a Eepublican in 1857 by the aid of three Dem- 
ocratic votes. His personal influence made him the candi- 
date of his State in the Chicago convention of 1860, which 
nominated Abraham Lincoln. In pursuance of the policy 
of the President to appoint his rivals to places in the Cabi- 
net, Cameron became Secretary of War. When he was 
driven into retirement with a vote of censure from the 
House of Eepresentatives (which vote was afterwards re- 
pealed), the President appointed him minister to Eussia. 
In the mean time his party had made him a candidate for 
Senator, to succeed David Wilmot. The Democrats had 
one majority in the joint Legislature, but Cameron claimed 
that his influence would command, as in previous elections, 
enough ox)position votes to elect him, and that he was the 
only Eepublican who could thus be chosen. It is not im- 
probable that such an arrangement had been made, but 
when the time came so solicitous was the care taken by 
Democratic leaders and so dire were the threats uttered 
against traitors that none dare leave the fold, and Charles 
E. Buckalew was elected by one majority. Pennsylvania 
now had two Democratic Senators, for Edgar Cowan, who 
had been elected in 1861, was novi also a Democrat. Cam- 
eron succeeded him in 1867, and held the post for ten years. 



360 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

when he resigned, with the assurance that his son. J. Donald 
Cameron, who for a short time had been Grant's Secretary 
of War, should succeed him. He in his turn retained the 
Senatorship for twenty years, and then declined re-election. 
Simon Cameron was a skilful manager of men and of party 
machinery, and during his life, through good report and 
evil report, never failed to command the fealty of the Ee- 
publicans of Pennsylvania to such an extent as to win for 
himself and his friends almost any honors he desired. 

In 1880 the distinguished Pennsylvanian, General Win- 
field S. Hancock, became the candidate of the Democratic 
party for the Presidency of the United States, 



^ 







d : i 



GEN. WINFIELD S HANCOCK. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

1870-1882. 

The Constitution of 1873— The Panic of 1873— State Finances— Strikes 
and Riots — The Philadelphia Centennial — Conclusion. 

The Constitution of 1776 had been the product of the 
work of extreme Eepublicans, and had granted great powers 
to the people. By 1790 a conservative reaction had set in, 
and the constitution of that year had made the governor 
the depository of vast responsibilities. The reverse swing 
of the pendulum had brought about the moderate Constitu- 
tion of 1838, which restored popular choice and account- 
ability. The process continued, and an amendment to this 
instrument in 1850 made judges elective ; another, in 1871, 
performed the same service for the State treasurership. 

The evils which now existed seemed to lie in the Legisla- 
ture. It was generally believed that many members of that 
body were corrupt, and that the chances and materials for 
corruption should be diminished : governor and people 
both seemed safer than the elected representatives. 

A Secretary of the Commonwealth had said: ^'It is 
notorious that the legislators are bought and sold in the un- 
seemly and disgraceful scramble which occurs at Harrisburg 
in the annual election for State Treasurer." 

A vast evil had also grown up in what was called special 
legislation. Much of this was meritorious. The demands 
of localities were different, and special cases were always 
likely to appear needing special treatment. But the oppor- 
tunity for ^^ log-rolling'^ and general corruption in connec- 
tion with local bills made all simple inconveniences sink 
into the background in comparison with the temptation to a 
moral degradation of the legislative body. 

So there was a general popular demand for a new consti- 
tution. In June, 1871, the Legislature voted to submit the 

361 



362 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

question to the people. In the fall of the same year they 
voted five to one to call a convention. In the following 
April the Legislature made the necessary provisions, and 
delegates were elected in IN'ovember. In November, 1872, 
the convention met in Harrisburg, and adjourned to Phila- 
delphia, electing William M. Meredith president. Its work 
was ratified by a vote of two hundred and fifty-three 
thousand for to one hundred and nine thousand against in 
December, 1873, and went into effect on the first day of 
January, 1874. 

Pennsylvania has no reason to be ashamed of that con- 
vention. A system of minority representation, fairly drawn 
up bj^ ex-Senator Buckalew, gave the Eepublicans a slight 
preponderance. Probably no abler body of men ever met 
in deliberation upon an important State matter within her 
borders. They were swayed as little by partisanship or 
selfishness as reasonable people have a right to exi)ect in 
such cases. The people, to a large extent, set aside the 
smaller j)oliticians they had been sending to the Legislature 
and selected serious, thoughtful, and scholarly men. The 
constitution adopted was one of the best possessed by any 
State. 

To guard against legislative corruption the State Treasu- 
rer was made elective by the people ; the number of legisla- 
tors was increased to fifty Senators and two hundred Eepre- 
sentatives, on the ground that large numbers were harder 
to purchase ; sessions were made biennial instead of annual 
as tending to break up the continuous business of lobbyists 
and managing politicians, and as being sufficient for all 
necessary legislative i^urposes ; and all special legislation 
was absolutely prohibited. The Legislature was hedged 
around by a great mass of prohibitions, while the penalties 
for bribery were severe and comprehensive. 

The office of lieutenant-governor was created, and he, 
with three other officials, constituted a pardon board, with- 
out whose recommendation no pardon could be issued by 
the governor. The governor was allowed to veto special 
items in appropriation bills. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 363 

A system of minority representation in the case of magis- 
trates and certain other officers was provided. The annual 
State elections were changed to conform to the date of the 
national elections, and a system of ballots was devised to 
prevent cheating. 

In the matter of education the antiquated j^rovisions of 
past constitutions were done away and ample provisions 
inserted requiring the provision and maintenance of an 
efficient system of public schools and the annual ax^propria- 
tion of at least one million dollars by the State ; prohibiting 
granting any money to sectarian schools ; and making 
women eligible to school positions. 

The new developments of railroads and canals and other 
corporations required a mass of new legislation, the objects 
of which were to protect pi'operty owners, stockholders, and 
patrons, and to maintain their proper subservience to the 
State which created them. 

It was premature to secure the adoption of clauses regu- 
lating appointments to civil offices by unpartisan competi- 
tive tests, or to secure the best results in balloting by 
secrecy and mechanical device. But nothing better was in 
that day possible, and the constitution has stood in the way 
of many a nefarious scheme. 

After the close of Geary's administration the debt of the 
State was reduced more slowly for a few years, and then 
remained between thirteen and fourteen millions during the 
rest of the decade. Governor Hartranft advised a reduction 
of taxation, and the Legislature assented in 1873. Taxes 
were taken off which had been levied on the gross re- 
ceipts of railroads, on the net earnings of corporations, and 
on cattle and farming implements. Thus was revenue re- 
duced over a million of dollars. The new constitution 
about the same time required an increased appropriation to 
schools. But quite as influential as either was the commer- 
cial crisis of 1873, which seriously reduced the debt- paying 
power of the Commonwealth. Overproduction was usually 
assigned as the cause of this misfortune. It began with the 
failure of the banking house of Jay Cooke & Co. in Phila- 



364 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

delphia. This house had been considered impregnable, 
and during the war had rendered important services to 
the government. The difficulties spread until they as- 
sumed national proportions. The symptoms accompanying 
the former crises of 1837 and 1857 were renewed, except 
that now the national banks, well entrenched behind wise 
general laws^ stood the assault better than the weaker and 
more dei)endent institutions of the earlier periods. Com- 
mercial houses failed, factories closed, wages were reduced, 
all classes suffered. Till about 1879 the dark times lasted, 
and recovery was slow. 

As often happened, serious labor troubles followed the 
crisis. The Molly Maguires was an old Irish organization, 
which brought its name and methods into the Pennsylvania 
coal regions. ^\Tiere there was a mine superintendent or 
boss objectionable to its members, he was overwhelmed 
with rudely drawn pictures of coffins and pistols, and 
serious warnings threatening his life. If these did not 
drive him from his post, or cause him to abate his objec- 
tionable habits, a detail of men from a neighboring branch, 
to whom he was entirely unknown, and who were often 
unacquainted with his offence, was appointed to murder 
him. This was generally successfully accomplished under 
circumstances which rendered detection almost impossible. 

These outrages began during the war, and showed them- 
selves among other ways by resistance to the draft. Loyal 
men in Carbon and Schuylkill counties were stricken down 
for their advocacy of the claims of the Union, and a mob of 
miners broke into the Mauch Chunk jail and released the 
prisoners. A succession of crimes followed, the order went 
into politics, and in some instances succeeded in electing 
the officers of justice, which made punishment for their 
crimes impossible. The coal regions were terrorized, and 
murders followed each other in rapid succession. 

In 1873, Franklin B. Gowen, the president of the Phila- 
delphia and Beading Eailroad Company, undertook the 
process of reformation. A successful private police had 
been organized, the objects of terror and hate to the out- 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 365 

laws. Detectives joined the order and ferreted out its 
secrets. A young Irishman named McParlan spent three 
years in establishing himself among them. A great strike 
followed the financial failure of 1873, and the ^'Mollies" 
were supreme. Courted by demagogues, with what they 
deemed an impregnable organization, they proceeded to 
take vengeance on the agents and property of operators. 
But gradually item after item of evidence was being lodged 
with trusted officials ; arrests were made, and in 1876 about 
a score of the order suffered the penalties of the law by the 
sentence of Judge Pershing in Pottsville. The reign of 
crime was over. 

Many strikes against reduction of wages occurred through- 
out Pennsylvania during these years of business unrest. In 
1877 the railroad employees through the State refused to 
work. Travel was suspended, and neither freight nor pas- 
senger trains were moved for some days. When the at- 
tempt was made by the companies the new trainmen were 
driven from their posts and the cars wrecked. Soldiers 
were sent to Pittsburg, and an unwise collision with the 
rioters, in which several were killed, intensified the feeling. 
The railroad station was burned to the ground, and for days 
the town was in possession of the inflamed populace. 

In Beading the great railroad bridge over the Schuylkill 
was burned. In Philadelphia, by wise police action and the 
judicious absence of militia, a conflict was averted. The 
miners in the coal regions struck in sympathy, and Federal 
troops were called out. Ultimately, order was restored, 
though fifty civilians, mostly entirely innocent of wrong, 
and five soldiers were killed, a million dollars' worth of 
property was destroyed, and the reduction of wages on a 
falling market was not averted. 

The centennial year was commemorated in Philadelphia 
by an international exposition, the management of which 
reflected great credit upon the public-spirited men who 
gave their abilities to its direction. The State of Pennsyl- 
vania appropriated one million dollars to the enterprise, 
the city of Philadelphia one million five hundred thousand 



366 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

dollars. Over two million dollars were subscribed to the 
stock by private individuals, about twenty per cent, of 
which was returned to them on closing the accounts. The 
United States Government grudgingly appropriated one 
million five hundred thousand dollars, with the condition 
that it should be repaid in advance of any percentage 
being given to the stockholders, a condition which was 
fully complied with. Admission receipts brought in nearly 
four million dollars and various concessions and royalties a 
million more. 

The Nation, State, and City each appointed commissions 
to aid the enterprise. It soon became evident that wise 
provisions had been made for all development and demands 
for space for exhibits from home and foreign houses were 
eagerly made. Beautiful grounds were transferred by the 
commissioners of Fairmount Park and great halls were 
erected upon them. The different States of the Union and 
foreign governments built their special head-quarters in 
varied architecture. The world was ransacked for all that 
was novel and unique in natural productions or customs or 
manufactures. Art received greater recognition than ever 
before in America, and interior decoration and architecture 
felt an impetus in many municipalities and homes which was 
never lost. The vast resources of the country were displayed 
for the first time to many a jealous foreigner and many a 
sceptical citizen. The contrasts with a century before in 
material development, comforts of living, and facilities for 
work were striking indeed, and were vividly brought before 
the attention of every one. The exposition was an epoch in 
the life of the nation and of the city. 

Let us briefly review the political development of the 
State as a whole. If there are dark features in it, it is 
well to recognize them, otherwise the impression is given 
that all was good in the past, and the imperfections of 
the present stand out as discouraging facts, indicating a 
decaying civilization. As a matter of fact, he who reads 
the original papers finds a continually improving political 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 367 

condition, with ever-rising ethical standards during the 
whole life of the State. Selfishness and mercenary aims 
were more in control one hundred years ago than to-day, 
and the people when fully informed more strongly demand 
righteousness than ever before. 

When Pennsylvania became a State she found besides 
various smaller sections three great and seemingly incon- 
gruous elements, — the English of the southeast, with a cen- 
tury of political control behind them, but withal inclined 
to peace, with a religion somewhat mystical and introspec- 
tive ; the Germans of the central belt, non- political and con- 
servative, satisfied with quiet conditions and native habits, 
and a religion which addressed itself to their spiritual 
rather than temporal conditions ; and the aggressive Pres- 
byterians of the west, who despised the religion and conse- 
quent habits of both the others and took full place in the 
politics of the day, whose religion went into their politics 
and their politics into their religion. A more heteroge- 
neous collection of people did not exist in any of the prov- 
inces along the coast. 

Nor did these differences disappear in the early life of the 
State. It was no longer Quaker against Presbyterian, but 
it was the East against the West, Federalism and Whigism 
against Democracy, with the Germans as a buffer and 
balance-wheel. The long line of German governors, reach- 
ing, with one term of three years excepted, from 1808 to 
1838, shows the courtship paid by both parties to this great 
body of voters. Every one of these governors could speak 
two languages, and preferred his mother tongue, and every 
one was the son of a Palatine immigrant of pre-revolution- 
ary days. Not only was this true of the governors elected, 
but also in the main of the candidates of the defeated par- 
ties. The Democracy of the West was extreme. It resisted 
Federal tax collectors, objected to the common law as an 
English and aristocratic institution, advocated the lowering 
of all official salaries to the standard of the laboring man, and 
was a strong friend of French as opposed to English interests. 

But population was migratory— common ideas fused the 



368 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

discordant elements. Americanism triumphed over race 
and religion, and every decade wrought its transformation 
into homogeneity and sympathy. 

And now a new factor which severed Pennsylvania from 
other States more strongly than anything racial, but which 
drew its population together and threw down barriers, camei 
into the political life of the Commonwealth — the coal and 
iron of its hills — the industrial development of the State. 
Pennsylvania strove hard to retain the Western trade 
threatened by the Erie Canal. Her roads had been the 
highways not only for her own children, but also for those 
of ISTew England, :N'ew York, and l!^ew Jersey on their 
weary travel to Pittsburg and down the Ohio. But she had 
the great barrier of the mountains athwart the path, and 
she burdened herself with forty million dollars of debt 
to construct her longitudinal passage-way of canal, port- 
age railway, canal again, and horse railway. Then when 
the financial crisis of 1837 came there was no money to pay 
interest, and Pennsylvania's shame was widely heralded by 
Sidney Smith's brilliant letters against ^'free and enlight- 
ened republics," and Wordsworth's more gentle but not 
less bitter verses. They were premature. Every dollar 
was paid, with interest on the delayed interest. Kot only 
so, but when her people found that the State ownership was 
corrupting her public men she demanded the sale at a great 
sacrifice of the line of public works, and cleared up the task 
with credit and promptitude. 

But the development of her own resources demanded 
great combinations of capital. Coal could not be mined 
and transported to meet the demand, the iron could not be 
dug up, smelted, and manufactured by a series of individual 
operators. Here Pennsylvania differed from many other 
States whose mills or farms or small enterprises were per- 
sonal concerns. These corporations came to the Legislature 
for endorsement and authority, and this body thus became 
the dispenser of a vast patronage in financial privileges. 
It was impossible that this system should exist without 
abuse, and scarcely, had the good people extinguished the 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 369 

State ownership of transportation lines, and settled down 
into comparative simplicity and correctness of govern- 
ment when the huge demand for coal and iron and the 
consequent perversion of legislation to private ends came 
upon the Commonwealth. It made her rich beyond her 
dreams, and her debt melted away like snow in the spring- 
time. Even the great expenses of the war did not stop the 
debt-paying. But the tares grew with the wheat, and 
again the people stepped in with the new constitution 
of 1873, which limited legislative powers and stopped special 
legislation. 

In the mean time another difficulty had arisen. The 
people of Pennsylvania had come to believe, properly or 
improperly it is unnecessary now to discuss, that their pros- 
perity was inextricably bound up with a national high tariff 
law. Again and again they had seen or thought they saw 
mills and mines closed, and idle workmen standing on the 
streets, and low prices of farm produce coincident with an 
extension of free-trade ideas. They had seen industry and 
good wages and money- making coincident with the return 
of a tariff. It was not, therefore, a matter of wonder that 
they were brought to the belief by the logic of circumstances 
that coincidence was also consequence, and that the pros- 
perity of the citizens was directly due to the policy of pro- 
tection. This was a mercenary conclusion, but it is of the 
same sort which has decided all our economic questions 
since we were a nation. Had the parties not separated on 
this line, it would not perhaps have seriously affected the 
question of good government. But when, some years after 
the war, it became evident that the cause of the tariff 
was bound up necessarily with one of the great political 
parties, it practically extinguished the other in Pennsylva- 
nia. A majority of two hundred thousand or three hundred 
thousand is practical unanimity. The advantages of an 
effective opposition were lost, and the dominant party, se- 
cure in power, with the instinct for organization developed 
by the great business enterprise of which the State was full, 
formed its machinery, chose its engineer, held up the cry of 

24 



370 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

free trade and hard times at each • election, and placed its 
candidates, good and bad, in power as it chose. Thus arose 
and was perpetuated the dominant political machinery. 

It was not a racial question. East, Middle, and West were 
alike. The same conditions have surrounded them all, and 
throwing aside the very diverse qualities of a century ago. 
they have seen brought to the common standard of Penn- 
sylvanians. The result would have been the same had the 
settlers of Massachusetts or Virginia or Louisiana found 
their way to Pennsylvania instead of their own State. The 
strength or weakness, whichever you choose to consider it, 
of the hills, would have produced such conditions of masses 
of ignorant laborers and an overbalanced political scales as 
to give unquestioned supremacy with its resulting dis- 
advantages to one party. 

Is this determinism? Did the mineral resources of 
the State inevitably demand a particular development? 
They undoubtedly made it highly probable, and in one 
sense almost necessary. But they were hardly so potent as 
to be out of reach of guidance. The main drift was uncon- 
trollable, but the channel it would take was partially 
directed. In this or any other State, a strong enough 
moral influence working in harmony with natural condi- 
tions, not against them, changes the whole development 
from unhealthful into healthful conditions. The statesman 
is he who sees beneath the surface, and aids in guiding 
the people along the natural lines of progress, keep- 
ing the moral atmosphere clean and inspiring. The 
demagogue follows these natural lines, but is unscrupulous 
as to means. The foolish reformer sets himself against the 
predetermined tendency, thinking that the abuses are neces- 
sarily bound up with it, is swept aside, considers himself a 
worthy martyr, and the times hopelessly bad. 

The original races which peopled the province have there- 
fore ceased to exert any strong determining influence upon 
its political development. They to some extent retain their 
social customs and their religion, but politics are but little 
affected by these. 



HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 371 

^N'or can we trace in Pennsylvania any peculiar permanent 
result from the principles which distinguished the province. 
The ideal democracy of Penn is no more the property of 
his State than of others. When she entered the Union she 
threw all her cherished theories, civil and religious liberty, 
peace, kindness to natives, penal enlightenment, into the 
common treasury, and drew therefrom such as she needed 
of the contributions of others. We are no longer Pennsyl- 
vanians in ideas of government, but Americans. 

The two centuries which have passed over Pennsylvania 
since the ^'Welcome'' sailed up the Delaware have been 
years of remarkable development. How far and how long 
the impress of the founder has guided that development is 
a problem impossible to solve. His enthusiasm for civil 
liberty permeated a congenial society which bore it to a 
success which seems unlimited. This liberty is now the 
assumption which lies at the basis of om' theories and of 
our every-day practice. So his ideas of perfect religious 
liberty have not developed, for as he enunciated them they 
were complete and finished. But we have found them en- 
tirely practical and in harmony with the best religion and 
the best statecraft. They also are a part of our fundamen- 
tal conceptions of government and society. We have not 
yet been able fully to adopt his policy of peace, — not so 
much because we deny it to be the true and beneficial policy 
for States as for individuals, but because we usually cannot 
see when the danger-point approaches how to conform our 
actions to its dictates. In this respect the development has 
not been as rapid as in the recognition of the value of lib- 
erty. ^Nevertheless there is development, and few doubt 
that wars between nations will soon be deemed as repug- 
nant to humanity as combats between individuals. Xor 
have we yet learned that justice to colored races is the expe- 
dient as well as the moral means of intercourse. In the face 
of greed for land and gold, absolute equity to Indian and Afri- 
can and Asiatic has gone to the wall, and the nation has lost 
honor and advantage. Here again we are learning the 
lesson, and each year makes the rights of a weaker race 



372 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

safer in our hands. We are also striving towards his posi- 
tion in the matter of oaths and of treatment of criminals, 
and many signs show in our judicial procedure an approxi- 
mation to the principles of Penn. 

The little school which he chartered in Philadelphia was 
the forerunner of a great development. He could hardly 
anticipate the collection of educational systems which would 
embrace university, college, secondary school, primary 
school, and kindergarten, and give every boy and girl of 
the State an opportunity for at least the elements of educa- 
tion, and in the great majority of cases much more. He 
would hardly have guessed that in two centuries there would 
be in his State twenty-five institutions for higher learning 
and nearly twenty thousand for lower, at which six hundred 
and fifty thousand youths would be in daily attendance. 

Though he had a very high conception of the possible 
growth of his province, it may be doubted whether, looking 
ahead two hundred years, he would have imagined within 
it over five million people, or one million in ^'the greene 
country town" he intended to establish. He was a man 
who did not in his zeal for liberty and peace scorn the more 
sordid rewards of industrialism, but he would hardly have 
anticipated over thirteen millions of improved acres yield- 
ing annually produce worth ten times as many dollars ; nor 
manufacturing establishments employing five hundred mil- 
lion dollars as capital, paying one hundred and thirty-five 
million dollars annually in wages, and producing goods 
worth seven hundred and forty-five million dollars ; nor 
could he have conceived the facilities for work and inter- 
course made possible by steam and electricity. 

He would rejoice in the reputation of his town in medi- 
cine and other applied sciences ; in the miles of comfortable 
homes which keep its people happy and contented ; in its 
ready response to the call of suffering, whether at home or 
abroad ; in its Sabbath decorum and general good order. 
He would, perhaps, rebuke its extravagance in living, its 
inequality of possession and opportunity ; he would cer- 
tainly find much of evil in its political standards and 




f'^ o / 




HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 373 

customs, and in the neglect by many of their political 
duties ; he would have demanded absolute righteousness 
without regard to results, and have declared modern utilita- 
rian criteria and fear of loss for conscience's sake to be 
incompatible with good government and the maintenance 
of rights. He who had spent months in prison with trium- 
phant results could hardly have comprehended the easy 
philosophy of a less earnest age. Yet had he known, as 
we do, all the lights and shades of its history, he could have 
seen a continual approximation to his own exalted standard 
of government and society. 



APPENDIX. 
¥^ 

Governors of Pennsylvania for Two Hundred Years. 

PROVINCIAL GOVERNORS. 

William Penn, Proprietor 1681-1693 

William Markham, Deputy Governor June, 1681-Oct. 24, 1682 

William Penn, Proprietor and Governor Oct. 24, 1682-June, 1684 

The Council (Thomas Lloyd, President) Aug., 1684-Dec., 1686 

1. Thomas Lloyd. A 

2. Robert Turner. ^.^^ Commissioners appointed 

3. Arthur Cook. I . p^^^ Dec., 1686-Dec., 1688 

4. John Simcock. 

5. John Eckley. J 

Captain John Blackwell, Deputy Governor Dec, 1688-Jan., 1690 

The Council (Thomas Lloyd, President) Jan., 1690-March, 1691 

Thomas Lloyd, Deputy Governor of Province ^ 

William Markham, Deputy Governor of lower I March, 1691-April 26, 1693 

Counties J 

Under the Crown of England 1693-1694 

Beniamin Fletcher, Governor of New York, Gov- 
ernor ^P^- 26. 1693-Mar., 1695 

William Markham, Deputy Governor Apr. 27, 1693-Mar^, 1695 

William Penn, Proprietor " ' ;'i^^^"!Iin 

William Markham, Deputy Governor March, 1695-Dec., 1699 

1 Dr John Goodson. "i Deputies to Deputy Governor 

2. Samuel Carpenter. | Markham -^ • • • • - ^^^rch, 1695 

William Penn, Proprietor and Governor Dec, 1699-Nov., 1701 

Andrew Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor (died> . . . Nov. 14, 1701-Apr., 1<03 

The Council (Edward Shippen, President) Apr., 1703-Feb., 1704 

John Evans, Lieutenant-Governor Feb., 1704-Feb., 1709 

Charles Gookin, Lieutenant-Governor Feb., 1709-May. 1<17 

Sir William Keith, Lieutenant-Governor May. Id (-July. liiS 

John Penn, Richard Penn, and Thomas Penn. Proprietors 1718-1746 

Sir William Keith, Lieutenant-Governor July, 1718-July. 1-^-6 

Patrick Gordon. Lieutenant-Governor. .Tnly. J^^f-f "^■' ^'^ 

The Council (James Logan, President) Aug.. 1' 36- Aug 1<38 

George Thomas. Lieutenant-Governor Aug.. 1 <38-May. 174b 

(John Penn died 1746: Richard Penn died 1771. when John 
Penn. his son. together with Thomas Penn. became sole ^ 

Proprietors) • • • ' '-'„ ' ' .l\^ 

George Thomas. Lieutenant-Governor .J^^\Lf v.i i74« 

The Council (Anthony Palmer. President) May. 1746-Nov.. 1748 

375 



376 



APPENDIX. 



James Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor Nov., 1748-Oct., 1754 

Robert Hunter Morris, Deputy Governor Oct., 1754-Aug., 1756 

William Denny, Lieutenant-Governor Aug., 1756-Oct., 1759 

James Hamilton, Lieutenant-Q , ernor Oct., 1759-Nov., 1763 

John Penn (son of Richard Penn), Lieutenant- 
Governor Nov., 1763-Apr., 1771 

The Council (James Hamilton, President) Apr., 1771-Oct., 1771 

Richard Penn (brother of John Penn), Lieutenant- 
Governor Oct., 1771-Aug., 1773 

John Penn, Lieutenant-Governor Aug., 1773-July, 1776 

PRESIDENTS OF THE SUPREME FXECUTIVE COUNCIL. 

Thomas Wharton, Jr 1777-1778 

Joseph Reed 1778-1781 

William Moore 1781-1782 

John Dickinson 1782-1785 

Benjamin Franklin 1785-1788 

Thomas Mifflin 1788-1790 



GOVERNORS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
.Under the Constitution of 1790. 

Thomas Mifflin Dec. 21, 1790-Dec. 17, 1799 

Thomas McKean Dec. 17, 1799-Dec. 20, 1808 

Simon Snyder Dec. 20, 1808-Dec. 16, 1817 

Willian Findlay Dec. 16, 1817-Dec. 19, 1820 

Joseph Hiester Dec. 19, 1820-Dec. 16, 1823 

John Andrew Shulze Dec. 16, 1823-Dec. 15, 1829 

George Wolf Dec. 15, 1829-Dec. 15, 1835 

Joseph Ritner Dec. 15, 1835-Jan. 15, 1839 

Under the Constitution of 1838. 

David Rittenhouse Porter Jan. 15, 1839-Jan. 21, 1845 

Francis Rawn Shunk Jan. 21. 1845- July 9, 1848 

(Resigned July 9, 1848.) 

William Freame Johnston July 26, 1848-Jan. 20, 1852 

(Vice Shunk, resigned.) 

William Bigler Jan. 20, 1852- Jan. 16, 1855 

James Pollock Jan. 16, 1855-Jan. 19, 1858 

William Fisher Packer Jan. 19, 1858-Jan. 15, 1861 

Andrew Gregg Curtin Jan. 15, 1861-Jan. 15, 1867 

John White Get y Jan. 15, 3867-Jan. 21, 1873 

Under the Constitution of 1873. 

John Frederick Hartranft Jan. 21, 1873-Jan. 18, 1879 

Henry Martyn Hoyt Jan. 18, 1879-Jan. 16, 1883 

Robert Emory Pattison Jan. 16, 1883-Jan. 18. 1887 



APPENDIX. 377 



Principal Officers of the United States Government from 
Pennsylvania, 1783 to 



PRESIDENTS. 
Prior to the Adoption of the Constitution. 

Date of ap- 
pointment. 

Thomas Mifflin Nov. 3, 1783 

Arthur St. Clair Feb. 2, 1787 

PRESIDENT. 
Under the Constitution. 

Term of Service. 
James Buchanan 1857-1861 

VICE-PRESIDENT. 
George M. Dallas 1845-1849 

SECRETARIES OF STATE. 

Timothy Pickering 1795-1800 

James Buchanan 1845-1849 

Jeremiah S. Black 1860-1861 

SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY 

Albert Gallatin 1801-1814 

Alexander J. Dallas 1814-1817 

Richard Rush 1825-1829 

Samuel D. Ingham 1829-1831 

William J. Duane 1833 

Walter Forward 1841-1843 

William M. Meredith 1849-1850 

SECRETARIES OF WAR. 

Timothy Pickering 1795 

James M. Porter 1843-1844 

William Wilkins 1844-1845 

Simon Cameron 1861-1862 

Edwin M. Stanton 1862-1868 

J. Donald Cameron 1876-1877 

SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY. 

William Jones 1813-1814 

Adolph E. Borie 1869 



378 APPENDIX. 

SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. 

Term of Service. 
T. M. T. McKennan 1850 

POSTMASTERS-GENERAL. 

Timothy Pickering 1791-1795 

James Campbell 1853-1857 

John Wanamaker 1889-1893 

Charles Emory Smith 1898 

ATTORNEYS-GENERAL. 

William Bradford 1794-1795 

Richard Rush 1814-1817 

Henry D. Gilpin 1840-1841 

Jeremiah S. Black 1857-1860 

Edwin M. Stanton 1860-1861 

Wayne MacVeagh 1881 

Benjamin H. Brewster 1881-1885 

ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT. 

James Wilson 1789-1798 

Henry Baldwin 1830-1846 

Robert C. Grier 1846-1870 

William Strong 1870-1880 

PRESIDENTS PRO TEM. OF THE SENATE. 

William Bingham 1797 

James Ross 1797-1799 

Andrew Gregg 1809 

SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

F. A. Muhlenberg 1789-1791 

F. A. Muhlenberg 1793-1795 

Galusha A. Grow 1861-1863 

Samuel J. Randall 1876-1881 



APPENDIX. 



379 



United States Senators from Pennsylvania. 



William Maclay 1789-1791 

Robert Morris 1789-1795 

Albert Gallatin 1793-1794 

James Ross 1794-1803 

William Bingham 1795-1801 

John P. G. Muhlenberg.. 1801 

George Logan 1801-1807 

Samuel Maclay 1803-1808 

Andrew Gregg 1807-1813 

Michael Leib 1808-1814 

Abner Leacock 1813-1819 

Jonathan Roberts 1814-1821 

Walter Lowrie 1819-1825 

William Findlay 1821-1827 

William Marks 1825-1831 

Isaac D. Barnhard 1827-1831 

George Mifflin Dallas 1831-1833 

William Wilkins 1831-1834 



Samuel McKean 1833-1839 

James Buchanan 1834-1845 

Daniel Sturgeon 1839-1851 

Simon Cameron 1845-1849 

James Cooper 1849-1855 

Richard Brodhead 1851-1857 

William Bigler 1855-1861 

Simon Cameron 1857-1861 

David Wilmot 1861-1863 

Edgar Cowan 1861-1867 

Charles R. Buciialew . . . 1863-1869 

Simon Cameron 1807-1877 

John Scott 1869-1875 

William A. Wallace 1875-1881 

J. Donald Cameron 1877-1897 

John I. Mitchell 1881-1887 

Matthew Stanley Quay. . 1887-1898 
Bois Penrose 1897 



INDEX. 



¥¥ 



Adams, Johk, 244. 
Audresses to voters. 277. 
Agitation for Crown colony, 158. 
Albany Treaty, 136. 
Antimasonry, 291, 294. 
Arnold, Benedict, 219. 
Articles of Confederation, 178. 
Assumption of State debts, 233. 

Baltimore, Lord, 42, 64, 92. 

Bank, National, 232, 267, 294. 

Bank of North America, 223. 

Banks, State, 256, 272, 273. 

Barclay, Robert, 29. 

Bartram, John, 202. 

Beissel, Conral. 188. 

Berkeley, Lord, 26. 

Riddle, James, 265. 

Biddle, Nicholas, 295, 329. 

Bigler, William, 339. 

Biles, William, 101. 

Binns, John, 262. 

Blackwell, John, 69. 

Bou-dary line, 93, 181. 

Bouquet, Colonel, 152. 

Braddock, General, 140. 

Bradford, William, 76, 128. 

Brandywine, Jtsattle of, 215. 

Breck, Samuel, 303. 

Brown, Charles Brockden, 259. 

Brown, Jacob, 265. 

Buchanan, James, 264, 332, 333. 

342, 351. 
Buckr^ot War, 320. 
Burlington, 28. 

Calendar, Change of, 139. 
Cameron, Simon, 341, 359. 
Camp Curtin, 353. 
Canals, 281, 283, 288. 
Carlisle, Abraham, 219. 
Centennial celebration, 365. 



Chambersburg raids, 354, 357. 
Coal, Anthracite, 236, 255, 281. 
Condition in 1739, 119. 
Connecticut claims, 182. 
Constitution of 170x, 85, 129. 
Constitution of 1776, 209. 
Constitution of 1790, 233. 
Constitution of 1838, 309. 
Constitution of 1873, 361. 
Continental Congress, 171, 173, 176. 
Continental soldiers' mutiny, 224. 
Convention to frame Constitution 

of United States, 226. 
Cost of province to Penn, 90. 
Council of Censors, 210. 
" County Party," 126. 
Crisis of 1837, 317. 
Crisis of 1857, 346. 
Crisis of 1873, 363. 
Curtin, Andrew G., 341, 350, 352. 

Dallas, Alexander J., 269, 271. 
Dallas, George Mifflin, 332. 
Debt of State, 325, 334, 344. 
Declaration of Independence, 177, 

178. 
Delaware, Lord, 17. 
Dennie, Joseph, 260. 
Denny, William, 148. 
Dickinson, John, 160, 166. 168, 
j 178, 225. 

Duane, William, 249. 
Dunkers, 188. 

Dutch in Delaware Valley, 18. 
Dutch West India Company, 18. 

Easton Conference, 147. 

Education : Flower's school, 62 ; 
Colonial schools, 197 ; Among 
the sects, 199 ; University of 
Pennsylvania, 200, 221, 237; 
Colleges and academies founded, 
381 



382 



INDEX. 



237 ; Literary work, 259, 335 ; 
Governor Wolf and public 
scliools, 297 ; Grants to col- 
leges, 298 ; Growth of public 
school system, 299 ; Adoption, 
304 ; Opposition and final 
triumph, 305 ; Girard College. 
329 ; Department of education, 
346 ; Teachers' institutes, 347 ; 
County superintendents, 347 ; 
Development, 372. 

Embargo, 258. 

Episcopalians, 98, 196. 

Evans, John, 96, 102. 

Evans, Oliver, 255. 

Federal party dies, 286. 

Findlay, William, 276. 

Fitch, John, 236. 

Fletcher, Benjamin, 77, 78. 

Flower, Enoch, 62. 

Ford, Philip, 91. 

Fox, George, 26, 30, 32. 

Franklin, Benjamin : Comes to 
Philadelphia, 127 ; Commis- 
sioner to Albany, 136 ; Aids 
Braddock, 140 ; Leader of as- 
sembly, 146 ; Goes to England, 
147 ; " Historical Review," 149 ; 
Negotiates with Paxton Boys, 
155 ; Writes preface to Gallo- 
way's speech, 161 ; Advises ac- 
quiescence in Stcmp Act, 165 ; 
Returns from England, 172 ; 
Pounds University of Pennsyl- 
vania, 200 ; Starts papers, 203 ; 
Scientific discoveries, 204 ; 

Founder of institutions, 204 ; 
Returns from England, 220 ; 
Becomes Presidert of Pennsyl- 
vania, 225 ; Urges adoption of 
Federal , Constitut on. 227 ; 
Death, 229. 

Fremont, John C, 342. 

Friends, Society of : Settle New 
Jersey, 26 ; Origin, 30 ; Direct 
revelation, 32 ; Worship, 32 ; 
Peace, 33 ; Oaths, 33 ; Mission- 
aries, 35 ; Persecutions, 35 ; 
Organization, 36 ; Selling rum 
to Indians, 61 ; Keith contro- 
versy, 75 ; Controversy with 



Governor Thomas, 123 ; Resig- 
nation of Assemblymen, 145 ; 
Take up arms, 156 ; End of in- 
fluence in politics, 179, 196 ; 
Schools, 197 ; Abolish slavery, 
224. 

Fries rebellion, 244. 

Frontier forts, 144. 

Fulton, Robert, 255. 

" Fundamental Constitutions," 49. 

Furly, Benjamin, 64. 

Gallatin, Albert, 242, 259. 
Galloway, Joseph, 161. 
Garrett, Thomas, 337. 
Geary, John W., 358. 
German immigration, 186. 
Germantown, Battle of, 217. 
Gettysburg, Battle of, 354. 
Gibson, John B., 261. 
Girard College, 329. 
Girard, Stephen, 256, 268, 328. 
Gookin, Charles, 104, 105, 109. 
Gordon, Patrick, 118, 122. 
Government, Form of, after 1701, 

88. 
Graham's Magazine, 335. 
" Great Law," 55. 
Gregg, Andrew, 286. 
Grow, Galusha A., 341. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 232. 
Hamilton, Andrew, 119. 
Hamilton, James, 133, 138. 
Hancock, General, 354. 
Harrisburg made Capital, 266. 
Harrison, William H., 330. 
Hartranft, John F., 358. 
Hayes, Jonathan, 111. 
Hiester, Joseph, 276, 285. 
Hill, Richard, 102. 
Holme, Thomas, 46. 
Hospital, Pennsylvania, 204, 275. 
Hoyt, Henry M., 358. 
Hudson, Henry, 17. 

Indians : Origin, 9 ; Iroquois and 
Lenape, 8 ; Habits, 11 ; Treat- 
ment, 13 ; Characteristics, 14 ; 
Markham's purchase, 45 ; 

Penn's care, 52 ; Treaty at 
Shackamaxon, 58 : Penn, 60 ; 



INDEX. 



383 



Walking Purcnase, 129 ; Al- 
bany Treaty, 136; Braddock's 
defeat, 141 ; " Friendly Asso- 
ciation," 146 ; Pontiac's con- 
spiracy, 151 ; Murder of Cones- 
togas, 153 ; Paxton riots, 154 ; 
Indian war, 185 ; Wyoming 
massacre, 221. 

Internal improvements, 287, 289, 
343. 

Iron works, 256. 

Jackson, Andrew, 284, 296, 307, 
f 318. 

Jefferson, Tliomas, 250. 
Johnston, William F., 330. 

Keith, George, 75. 
I Keith, William, 111, 112, 114, 116, 
117. 
Kelpius, John, 187. 
Kinsey, John, 134. 
Know-Nothing Party, 339. 

Lancaster becomes Capital, 246. 

Lancaster, Joseph, 300. 

Laws agreed upon in England, 51. 
55. 

Leib, Michael, 266. 

Library, Philadelphia, 204. 

Lloyd, David, 69, 97, S9, 103, 104, 
121. 

Lloyd, Thomas, 63, 66, 68, 69, 75, 
82. 

Logan, Chief, 185. 

Logan, Dr. George, 245. 

Logan, James : Comes to Phila- 
delphia, 83; Leader of pro- 
prietary party, 97 ; Impeached, 
104 ; Removed by Keith, 116 ; 
Becomes President of Council, 
122 ; Friend of Indians, 129 ; 
.Dies, 134. 

Logan, William, 145. 

Lotteries, 235. 

M.4.GAZINES, 260. 

Markham, Colonel William, 45, 71, 

75, 82, 96. 
May, Captain, 17, 18. 
McKean, Thomas, 248, 251. 
Meade, General, 354. 



Mennonites, 187. 

Mexican War, 333. 

Mifflin, Thomas, 170, 234, 241. 

Miller, Peter, 188. 

Molly Maguires, 364. 

Moravians, 189. 

More, Nicholas, 55, 67. 

Morris, Robert, 223, 244. 

Morris, Robert Hunter, 138, 148. 

Muhlenberg, Frederick A., 230. 

Muhlenberg, Henry M., 193. 

Native Americans, 327. 

New Jersey settled, 25 ; Bought 
by Quakers, 26. 

New Orleans, Battle of, 270. 

New Sweden conquered by Dutch, 
22. 

New Sweden conquered by Eng- 
lish, 24. 

Nominating conventions, 279. 

Non-importation, 166, 168. 

Norris, Isaac, 105, 106. 

Norris, Isaac, 2d, 127, 136, 147. 

Oaths, 34, 107, 110. 
Olmstead, Gideon, 253. 

Packer, William F., 340, 350. 

Palatines, 191. 

Paper money, 115, 119, 134, 
142. 

Parties in 1755, 143. 

Pastorius, 64. 

Pattison, Robert E., 359. 

Paxton riots, 154. 

" Peace-Makers," 58. 

Perry, Oliver, 265. 

Pemberton, Israel, 155. 

Penn, John. 153, 157, 173. 

Penn, Sir William, 37, 42. 

Penn, Thomas, 121, 122, 129, 137. 

Penn, William : Birth, 37 ; Writ- 
ings, 38 ; Opinion of Delaware 
Indians, 12 ; Buys East New 
Jersey, 27 ; Buys West New 
Jersey, 29 ; His charter, 41 ; 
Secures Delaware, 42 ; Names 
the province, 43; Address old 
settlers, 44 ; Terms to settlers. 
45 ; Lays out Philadelphia, 46 ; 
Ideas of government, 47 ; His 



384 



INDEX. 



" Fundamental Constitution," 
49 ; " Concessions" to colonists, 
52 ; Comes to Pennsylvania, 54 ; 
Passes " Great Law," 55 ; Penn's 
Treaty, 58 ; Builds " Letitia 
House," 61 ; Dispute with Bal- 
timore, 64 ; Goes to England, 
66 ; Influence with Duke of 
York, 68 ; Instructs Blackwell, 
70 ; Loss of influence under 
William and Mary, 72 ; Ar- 
rested and imprisoned, 73 ; 
Trials, 77 ; Released and re- 
stored to government, 80 ; Re- 
moves Markham, 83 ; Second 
visit to America, 83 ; Asks as- 
sembly for money, 84 ; Gives 
Constitution of 1701, 85 ; 

. Leaves province, 89 ; Expenses, 
90 ; Troubles with Ford, 91 ; 
With Baltimore, 92 ; Appoints 
Hamilton and Evans, 96 ; David 
Lloyd's attack on, 99 ; Appoints 
Gookin, 104 ; Contemplates sale 
of Province, 106 ; Death, 108 ; 
Plan of union of the colonies. 
164. 

Penn, William, Jr., 100. 

Penns bought out, 223. 

Pennsylvania Hall, 316. 

Philadelphia : Founded, 46 ; Penn 
visits, 54 ; Immigrants arrive, 
57 ; Cave dwellers, 68 ; Charter, 
88 ; Institutions of, 204 ; Ar- 
chitecture, 206 ; British in pos- 
session of, 216 : Constitutional 
Convention meets in, 226 ; Capi- 
tal city, 229 ; Government re- 
moves from, 247 ; Shipping busi- 
ness, 256 ; Literary centre, 259 ; 
In 1817, 280 ; Uses anthracite 
coal, 282 ; Antislavery agitation, 
316 ; Riots, 327 ; Literary re- 
vival, 335 ; Consolidation, 347 ; 
Mass meeting of 1861, 350 ; 
Centennial Exposition, 365. 

Pollock, James, 340, 346. 

Pontiac, 151. 

Population, 186. 

Porter, David R., 319, 323, 330. 

Portfolio, 260. 

Printz, Governor, 20. 



Prison reform, 275. 
Privateers, 83. 

Quaker control of assembly 

ceases, 145. 
Quakers. (See Friends, Society 

of.) 
Quarry, Robert, 98. 

Railroads, 288, 326, 343, 344, . 

Read, T. Buchanan, 336. 

Reed, Joseph, 170, 174. 

Relief notes, 326. 

Revere, Paul, 169. 

Review of political development, 

366. 
Reynolds, General, 355. 
Riot of 1742, 126. 
Riots, 126, 316, 327, 365. 
Ritner, Joseph, 292, 297, 307, 308, 

315, 322. 
Rittenhouse, David, 202. 
Roberts, John, 219. 
Ross, James, 253. 
Rush, Dr., 238. 

Sale of Pennsylvania to Crown, 
106. 

Schlatter, Michael, 192. 

Schulze, John A., 285. 

Schwenkfelders, 189. 

Scotch-Irish, 194. 

Sentiment of Pennsylvania at out- 
break of Revolutionary War, 174. 

Sergeant, John, 309. 

Shippen, Edward, 88, 96. 

Shunk, Francis R., 330. 

Slavery, 312, 337, 340, 350. 

Slavery reaction, 350. 

Slaves freed in Pennsylvania, 224. 

Smith, Sidney, 324. 

Smith, Provost, 200, 221. 

Snyder, Simon, 252. 

Society, American Philosophical, 
204. 

Soldiers' Orphan School, 358. 

Sower, Christopher, 189. 

Spanish War, 123. 

Stamp Act, 165. 

St. Clair, Arthur, 234. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 305, 330, 341. 

Stewart, Charles, 265. 



INDEX. 



385 



Sullivau, General, 222. 

Swaanendael, 18. 

Swedes in Delaware Valley, 19. 

Tariff, 271. 283, 331. 
Taylor, Bayard, 336. 
Taylor, Zachary, 334. 
Temperance, 345. 
Thomas. George. 123, 133. 
Thomson, Charles, 170. 
Thomson, John Edgar. 327. 
Trenton, Battle of, 214. 
Turnpike, Lancaster, 235, 255. 
Turnpikes, 255. 

Underground railroad, 337. 
University of Pennsylvania. (See 

Education.) 
Usselinx, William, 18. 

Valley Forge, 217. 
Van Buren, M., 330. 
Vaux, Roberts, 303. 
Virginia exiles, 216. 



Walking purchase, 129. 

War for the Union, 352. 

War of 1812, 263. 

War with France, 132, 231. 

Washington. George, 213, 216, 217, 

230, 231, 233, 241. 
Wayne, Anthony, 216. 
Wayne, Isaac, 267. 
Welsh settlers, 02. 
West, Benjamin, 203. 
Whiskey Rebellion, 239. 
White. Josiah, 281. 
Williamson, Passmore, 338. 
W^ilmot, David, 333, 341. 
Wilson, James. 220. 230. 
Witchcraft, 61. 
Wolf, George, 292, 297. 
Wyoming massacre, 221. 

Yellow Fever, 237, 239. 
Yorktown, 222. 

ZiNZENDORF, 180, 190. 



THE END. 



26 



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